You can now see the weather in the United app

United Airlines introduced a new tool in United App Wednesday could help travelers keep an eye on the July 4 weather delays — the holiday is expected to be the culmination of what has been a record breaking summer tourist season.

The new tool features a live AI-powered radar map to help passengers visualize delays and potential impacts to their flight, even if it’s sunny at their current location.

United is the first domestic airline to provide real-time, radar-based information about weather-related flight delays, the airline said in a press release. Along with the new weather map feature, United has provided fairly detailed information explaining the cause of any delays or cancellations, which the airline began implementing in 2018 as part of its a pilot program before applying and expanding across the system.

The new feature builds on the Chicago-based airline’s efforts to improve passenger communications over the past few years, including near-real-time details about a given flight, such as gate changes, boarding times, plane changes, crew schedule changes and inclement weather.

Considering that the Transportation Security Administration reported screening more people on June 24 than any other day in the agency’s nearly 23-year history, these features could be especially useful for United passengers on 4th of July Travel WeekThe upcoming holiday season is likely to mark eight of the 10 busiest travel days ever at TSA checkpoints since Memorial Day, according to TSA data.

June 30 saw more than 1,370 flights canceled across U.S. airports, including 120 by United — about 4% of the airline’s schedule. Overall, though, cancellations have been down this summer, well below the infamous summer of 2022, which saw the airline collapse.

“With more people traveling this summer than ever before, we wanted to provide customers with an easier way to connect with real-time information about their flights, and texting is the simplest solution,” Jason Birnbaum, United’s chief information officer, said in a statement. “We know customers value transparency, and by combining cutting-edge technology tools with the power of people, we can provide more people with even more detailed information about their flights.”

As of Wednesday, the United app will provide customers with links to live weather radar maps that show conditions along flight routes that could lead to weather delays. Additionally, all customers can now access links to weather maps in the United app under “flight status updates” to see when a flight is delayed due to weather.

The push for real-time communication is a joint effort between dedicated customer service teams in network operations centers and flight operations teams to use AI to review flight data and write messages to customers.

“These are more helpful and relevant text messages or emails that provide context as to why a flight is changing during a weather delay—including a link to live weather radar,” United said in a statement.

Like the TSA, United is expecting its busiest July 4 holiday season ever — the airline predicts more than 5 million passengers will fly from June 28 to July 8, up more than 7% from last year.

Other features of the United app that can help passengers during flight delays include automated self-service flight rebooking, which allows customers to rebook flights, track their luggage, and determine if they are eligible for hotel and meal vouchers. United also gives customers real-time access to details like their flight number and gate number, and a countdown timer to departure on their phone screen via Live action without opening the app. The airline also remains the only domestic airline to offer seat map feature in app for families who want to book free seats for children under 12 in their group (included in the basic economy fare).

Read more related: