Here’s everything you need to know about the Flighty app
I’ve been tracking my flights obsessively for years.
I know it is superstitions, but I always text myself flight information before a trip so I can track my route on JetLovers.com. Somehow, I believe it will avoid flight cancellation. In any case, I have also used it before Google or another favorite of mine, FlightRadar24.
But a new player in the space has made me a convert.
Flighty is a fairly new flight tracking app that helps me track my flights daily and keep a constant record of my trips around the world. The paid version even gives you an end-of-year summary that can help you look back in an interesting way.
Here’s everything you need to know to decide whether you should invest in this cool app or not.
What is a flight?
Flighty is an Apple iOS app launched in 2019, and it shares real-time updates about your flights, including delays and cancellations. Sometimes it knows when a flight is in trouble before your airline app does.
“I love Flighty because it organizes all my flights and tells me about changes many times before the updates show up on the dashboard,” said Mike Panzarella, chief technology officer at Rocket Dollar. airport or at the gate”. He has been using Flighty since January 2023 and swears by it.
“It helps you feel calm and helps you understand problems before a bunch of other people do, which is great,” he said. “I think it makes travel simpler. It’s almost like having an assistant or travel agent for $49 a year.”
There are paid and free versions of Flighty. The free version gives you real-time updates on delays or cancellations and will alert you to gate changes, departure and arrival times, and check-in times. You can also track your flights, but you won’t receive notification notifications or many other advanced functions.
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The upgraded version is called Fighty Pro and costs $3.99 a week if you pay as you go, or $3.99 a month if you buy a one-year membership for $47.99. You can also purchase a lifetime membership for $249. (I ended up buying a one-year membership because I wanted to try it but wasn’t ready to commit to a lifetime.)
The paid version has more bells and whistles. Here are just some of Flighty’s features:
- It automatically pulls future and historical flights from your calendar.
- Passenger flights are displayed on the screen when you open the app.
- It gives you a countdown timer for your trip (up to 365 days in advance).
- The app runs through 15 stages in a day of travel, including time until boarding and delays.
- It displays your booking code and check-in information.
- Live tracking of your flight begins 24 hours before travel.
- It will warn you about airport delays, late arriving planes, and other problems.
- It also shows you taxi, takeoff and landing times.
- The progress bar displays while you are flying.
- You will be informed about the arrival gate and baggage claim carousel upon landing.
According to the company, “Flighty was named an Editor’s Choice app by Apple within days of its launch.” Indeed, I found this to be a useful tool and especially interesting because it appealed to my AvGeek interests.
How much does Flighty cost?
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Real-time operations of the Flighty Pay-As-You-Go plan. FLY
If you want a family plan, you can choose one for $7.49 a month ($89.99 billed annually) or $449 for life.
Flighty lets you know when your flight is delayed
Flighty will let you know if your flight is delayed in many cases. This can prevent you from arriving at the airport earlier than necessary, thus saving you valuable time. According to the company, the number one cause of delays is the plane being late to pick you up. Flighty said, “…we automatically monitor that for 25 hours before departure.”
Flighty will alert you to airport delays, late arriving planes, and other problems with your flight. A good example of that can be seen in the screenshot below. Flighty notified me a few hours before my flight to Cancun, Mexico, from San Francisco, and I was able to make time to get to the airport before my flight.
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Flighty flight delay announcement. FLY
However, I found that Flighty isn’t perfect at tracking latency. A recent long-haul flight between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) was delayed nearly three hours with no notice from Flighty .
Flighty let me know as we backed away from the gate but couldn’t keep up with the flight as it eventually mechanically delayed and returned to the gate.
In fact, to this day, Flighty records that the flight departed on time, although we ended up departing about three and a half hours late.
Still, despite its imperfections, the app still provides valuable information that most third-party tracking companies don’t.
For example: “Where is my plane?” Your aircraft tracking starts 25 hours before your flight, which is always reliable.
With this feature, you can better predict when delays may occur, giving you time to make other arrangements before official announcement (if necessary).
Flighty notifies you while in the air
Flighty tells you which gate you’ll be departing from or arriving at, as well as any gate changes that occur on the day of travel. This app is also constantly present when you are on a flight. It will tell you whether your flight is on time and how long you have left on the flight.
On a recent Atlanta flight, Flighty told me the flight would be a little early.
The app also tracks delays when you’re flying, as you can see with this notification about a flight from New Orleans to New York. Flighty not only tells me my flight is delayed, but also tells me how late the plane will be.
Another example of a flight delay notification appeared when I was flying Hawaiian Airlines’ all-new Dreamliner from Honolulu to San Francisco. As you can see, the flight was delayed a bit. In addition to showing new arrival times, Flighty also shows a nifty map of what the San Francisco Bay Area and San Francisco International Airport (SFO) look like that day.
These features can be useful or at least fun when you’re flying, and can save you from having to open another app. They can even update you when you’re not connected to the Internet because the watch still works.
For an anxious traveler like me, Flighty is extremely helpful. I feel like I’m always well informed on my trips and a little ahead of other travelers.
Flighty can help keep your friends and family up to date
You can also invite friends and family to share information with you on Flighty. Simply invite friends via text message. Once they accept, you can set custom alerts and track their flight and vice versa.
Flighty will update you if your friends and family have flight changes, cancellations, delays, or other issues that arise, depending on how you’ve customized your settings.
“No other service has ever successfully built ‘flying friends.’” “They all tried to make it personal,” Flighty founder Ryan Jones said in a press release. social and public. But that’s not what users want. They want to share with just a few friends and family, all privately, without needing to sign up for a new service.”
Flighty will also give you data about your upcoming flights
Flighty also gives you interesting data about your upcoming flights. You can see if your flight is on time and your filed flight plan, along with other options.
Flighty can provide data about your past year of travel
One of the best features of the app is the “Flight Passport”. This option allows users to view and share personal travel maps, mileage, and other interesting statistics from their flights over the past year. It will even take data during your flight.
As you can see, it shows me flights from both my current travel year and previous years.
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Flighty Passport 2024 Tracker. FLY
According to Flighty, I’ve flown about 500,000 miles on 20 different airlines. That’s a pretty big undercount, but you can learn more below.
The app also tells you how many hours you’ve lost due to delays during the year and throughout your life.
In total, I lost 44 hours due to delays, according to Flighty.
Flighty is an AvGeek’s dream
One of the best things about Flighty is all the flight information the app gives you. It’s extremely appealing if you’re an AvGeek type.
This app will tell you your most popular aircraft type, the number of different jets you’ve flown, details about each of your flights, and many other interesting aircraft statistics .
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Flighty displays your aircraft statistics. FLY
These are just a few examples of what you will find in the app.
The flight wasn’t perfect
As I mentioned above, Flighty doesn’t pick up all delayed flights, but there are a few other quirks that annoy me and some other users.
Panzarella told me that Flighty lost one of his segments after the Aeromexico flight he was on was diverted.
“The original and final destination was never picked up from the diversion airport,” he said. “It doesn’t accurately reflect my total number of flights for the year.”
He told me he even flagged it to Flighty, but it was never adjusted.
I noticed the app also couldn’t find all my historical flights. Some of my flights weren’t integrated with my work and personal calendars, and Flighty had difficulty finding many of my flights, especially from previous years. My lifetime totals are wildly inaccurate and even last year’s statistics were missing many flights.
Panzarella told me he had better luck.
“I integrated it with Tripit and it was seamless,” he said. “Tripit imports my emails and then automatically publishes them to Flighty.”
Indeed, after I integrated Flighty with TripIt, it found more of my flights, but some were still missing.
The good news is that as the year goes on, I can track my flight statistics to ensure that all my flights are recorded going forward. You can also go back in time to add in previous flights that may be missing from your lifetime flight total, but that’s a project for me for another day.
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