This travel app can tell you about your flight delay before the airport does

An iPhone app can track your plane 25 hours before your flight takes off (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

We all know the anxiety of getting into departures, positioning yourself perfectly near one of the big scary boards and…nothing happening.

No gate information, no boarding calls. Is your flight delayed? Does it even exist?

Well for all the airport dads out there, there’s an app to help.

Flighty is a tool (also available as a website) that promises to tell passengers about a delay even before the airline does.

It’s already pretty popular, with the company saying that on any given a day, two out of three US flights have a Flighty user on board.

And now, a recent rollout, dubbed the Airport Intelligence update, means it can even tell users why the delay is happening in the first place.

Flighty is available as both an app and a website (Picture: Flighty)

The website reads: ‘Airlines often keep delay information under wraps until the last minute. Flighty doesn’t.

‘We track the inbound aircraft 25 hours before your flight, so we can predict a new departure time long before the airline notifies you.’

The app uses machine learning (a type of AI) to predict delays caused by late-arriving aircraft — which can be up to six hours before the airline even says anything.

The technology also inputs information from air traffic control, including details on ground stops, weather, or airport issues.

All this means that travellers can get extra detail on gate information, departure times, baggage belts, and booking codes — it’s basically like having a mini version of the big flight board in your pocket.

The website has a map where users can navigate to a specific airport (there are more than 14,000 listed) and find their flight from there.

At the time of writing, we looked at the situation at London Heathrow and things are pretty good, with 75% of departures are on time, 23% are delayed, and 2% are cancelled.

You’ll board soon… right? (Picture: Getty Images)

There’s also a breakdown of the takeoff delay, so you can estimate how long you might be sat idle on the plane, waiting for a bit of momentum.

Elsewhere, the Flighty Friends setting gives users the ability to share their flight status with pals, so if they’re picking you up on the other side, they’ll know exactly what the situation is.

And, if you’re feeling particularly nerdy, the app also allows you to track your most-flown aircraft. It’ll give you the lowdown on how many times you’ve flown on that exact model of plane, and for how many hours.

Why are flight tracking apps so popular right now?

While flight tracking used to be the reserve of aviation nerds, these days, everyone seems to be checking up on planes.

As AirAdvisor expert Anton Radchenko tells Metro, travellers are increasingly taking this new approach.

He explains: ‘Passengers increasingly want real-time visibility for their journeys, especially when disruption is involved, which explains why these apps are getting popular.’

These behavioural shifts have been driven by a period of intense uncertainty in the world of air travel, which Anton says includes strikes, airspace closures, and wider operational disruption.

‘What matters most to travellers is not just knowing that a delay has happened, but understanding how it is evolving in real time.

‘That visibility gives passengers a greater sense of control in what is otherwise a very opaque system,’ he says.

But regardless of how much information you have, no amount of tracking can move you onto an earlier flight, or encourage airlines to be speedier in their decision-making.

‘What passengers are really gaining is earlier awareness, not greater control,’ Anton says.

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