FlightAware is an awesome app. If you ever travel by air, I recommend installing it and using it next time. You can put in your airline and flight number, and it will tell you when it is scheduled to depart. Or, if you are picking up someone at the airport, you can see their scheduled arrival time.
But, while you are waiting at the airport for your plane, you can press the "track incoming flight" button and it will show you where your plane is at that moment (even if it is a different flight number). I've used this many times to predict that my incoming plane is going to arrive late, board late and depart late, long before the airline will admit it.
If you have in-flight WiFi, you can use it to track the progress of your own plane. I've confirmed that my own plane was in a racetrack "holding pattern" by looking at the track on the map.
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Nope, it's real-time. I've tracked my own plane while I was on it, and confirmed turns in a holding pattern by looking at the radar track on the map.
