You don’t necessarily need an app to see where an aircraft is at any given time—if you type the airline and flight number into Google, it’ll show you the arrival and departure information and where it is en route based on data pulled from Flightview (which also has a standalone app). However, there are a handful of native and third-party flight trackers, both paid and free, that provide live updates and other alerts so you have the most current information when you travel, often faster than the airlines themselves. Here are five of my favorite recommendations. Flighty costs money but can be more accurate than your airline’s own appFlighty is an iOS app with robust flight tracking features like real-time delays and cancellations and live updates shown on your lockscreen (as a Live Activity) for flights in progress, whether yours or someone else’s. It’s one of our favorite travel apps because it often has more current information than other sources, including airlines themselves. It also shows your plane’s status starting 25 hours in advance. Most of these features require a paid subscription, which you can do by week ($5) if you don’t travel often, or annually ($60) if you do. FlightAware is a flexible, free alternativeIf you don’t want to pay for flight tracking and don’t mind ads, you can get all the data you need with FlightAware. The free app allows you to search and track any flight in real time and set up custom alerts for departures, arrivals, cancellations, and more. You can see live progress to the destination and check for delays using the “Where’s My Plane?” feature—plus, there’s a global flight map, airport weather data, and other features for aviation nerds. FlightAware doesn’t have a Live Activities integration, but it is an excellent no-cost tracker.
FlightRadar24 integrates with iOS and AndroidFlightRadar24 is similar to FlightAware in terms of the information available, including historical data, real-time flight status, and arrivals and departures at any airport around the world. It, too, has far more detail than the casual flyer needs, but the basic features are free, including tracking with Live Activities (iOS) and Live Notifications (Android).
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Apple Messages offers built-in tracking for iOS usersMessages on iOS has a built-in flight tracking feature with real-time information about departures, arrivals, gate changes, and baggage claim numbers—and, if the flight is en route, a live map. To use it, you simply need to have texted yourself or someone else the flight number via iMessage (not SMS), meaning you can use Messages to track any flight. The flight info does have to be in one of a few specific formats, the simplest being airline + flight number (Delta 426, for example). Within the message, tap the underlined flight text to pull up the tracking info within Messages. This is a solid, if basic, free option for iOS, lacking both live updates and push notifications. Google Wallet shows flight status on the lock screen on AndroidIf you’re an Android user, you can now see your own flight’s live status on your always-on display and lockscreen. Google recently introduced Live Updates to Google Wallet—all you have to do is add your boarding pass, and tracking will pop up soon after your flight takes off. The icon shows flight duration, estimated arrival time, and progress to a destination. Obviously, this feature doesn’t allow you to view other flights besides the one you’re currently on, so it’s not as useful for tracking flights more broadly.
