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Probably wouldn't have been able to provide an early warning of flight delays and cancellations caused by Crowdstrike through 😂

Coincidentally, I was flying Delta on the 19th and got advance warning about delays to my flight via Flighty. Flighty gets their data from FlightAware which has zero Windows infrastructure and was not directly impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. When our inbound aircraft got cancelled, I knew before the gate agent did. When the flight plan was re-filed with a new tail number, I knew before the gate agent did. The Delta app didn't tell me anything about it. When our gate changed, I knew before the airline told any of us. It was a huge benefit.

Meh. Free data form the airline

The airline has incentives to not necessarily provide the most up-to-date information to passengers. Often using a third party data provider can provide insights in advance of the official airline announcements.
 
I'm on the annual, may just go lifetime when my renewal comes up.

Coming up on 300 flights and I would not be without it. (and TripIt)
 

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Seems like Flighty is best for travelers and FlightRadar24 is best for those of us who just can't resist looking up everytime a plane flies over.

re. overhead flts. have you used ADS-B data for their intel? Best I’ve found when curious about nearby fixed wing or rotary activity.
 
subscription = no thank you
I hardly travel these days, but before covid I did like 30-40 roundtrips/year, never mixed airlines during a trip, and the airline apps back then were alright, needed to know how to navigate them ...
 
If people fly once or twice a year, then $8 might be worth it to them.
I love Flighty but honestly don’t need it 90% of the time. When a decent enough delay happens I’ll pony up the $4 to see what’s going on instead of waiting for an announcement or have to wait in line to ask the gate agent. Totally not worth $48 for me as I’m not a power flyer (thankfully).
 
I would define a trip as all subsequent flights departing within 24 hours from the first flight. Any more complex than that, subscribe to a weekly or an annual subscription plan.
Until your flight gets cancelled and bumped until tomorrow. Quickly turns into a nightmare...

$4 for a week clears all that up for an occasional user. That's long enough to be useful without needing you to pony up again for a "trip" without feeling like you're being shaken down all the time.

I loved the app so much when I first used it I ponied up for a lifetime family plan (mainly due to my absolute HATE for subscriptions). This app is really really good.
 
I used Flighty for the first time last September when I did a round trip from the U.K. to the US, and back again, and was really impressed by the info provided and the great UX. It was even able to tell me the gate info for my flights before that info appeared on the airport screens.

I’m doing that trip again in two weeks and have just subscribed to the monthly option (£5.99 here in the U.K.). I’ll keep it/use it for this month only, and wont renew again until my next trip around Christmas time. Well worth it for me.
 
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Flight tracking app Flighty was today updated with a new feature that is designed to provide users with additional information on the reason behind delayed flights.

flighty-app-update.jpg

Flighty is using aviation authority data and machine learning to provide early warnings of delays, and when a delay is official, the reason for the delay. Most delays are due to airspace issues and late aircraft, both of which Flighty will monitor.

The app is able to predict delays "hours in advance," and give information to Flighty users that airlines often decline to share. The result is more control over travel plans.Flighty tracks late arriving airplanes, Air Traffic Control notices, airport operational issues, weather problems, and even major events that can impact air traffic, such as the Super Bowl.

Information on air space delays is limited to the United States, Canada, and the European Union, though late aircraft, airport issues, and live delay trends are available worldwide.

Other new features in today's update include live airport performance trends, aircraft internal names, fixes for missing tail numbers, and clear in-app updates when flight schedules change.

Flighty is available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The app is free to download, but the delay features are part of Flighty Pro, which is priced at $4 for one week or $48 for a year. More information on the app can be found on the Flighty website.

Article Link: Flighty Now Able to Provide Early Warnings About Flight Delays
This app is as critical to me as a frequent flier as Waze is to me as a frequent driver. One of the most useful apps in existence.
 
Not actually free. Those APIs are monetized depending on volume of use.

Think of it like most weather data—free for you or I, for the most part, but as soon as you create an app that does thousands or millions of API hits, it costs money. Potentially a lot of money. Look at what happened to the Reddit apps when Reddit choose to monetize its APIs for all but the most casual uses. This is happening everywhere to data access, both public and private.

Software that repurposes data feeds into useful UI/UX is only going to get more expensive as time passes. And most of that money passes directly to the data source, not the developer of the aggregator.
It’s free data/info I get from my carriers app. ie. United uses Live Events, gate and seat info in dynamic island, etc, etc. Why would I pay?! They all pull from the same data.
 
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They all pull from the same data.

This is not correct. There is no central, universal source of flight tracking data that everybody uses. There are a variety of providers of varying quality and many airlines that eschew external data in favor of relying solely on their internal data. Also, airlines have business reasons not to provide the most timely information to their passengers and can be motivated to delay critical notifications until it's more convenient for their customer support or operations staff. Their priorities are different than yours.
 
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Meh, many of these cases are trivial to predict.

Swift:
if location == ORD || location == MDW || airline == DL
{
    late_alert(message: "You're screwed")
}

(Yep, I'm being facetious. Flighty's pretty nice IMHO, except it could use a bit less focus on airplane tail numbers and more on helping people navigate terminals, get notified of baggage claim selection, etc.)
 


Flight tracking app Flighty was today updated with a new feature that is designed to provide users with additional information on the reason behind delayed flights.

flighty-app-update.jpg

Flighty is using aviation authority data and machine learning to provide early warnings of delays, and when a delay is official, the reason for the delay. Most delays are due to airspace issues and late aircraft, both of which Flighty will monitor.

The app is able to predict delays "hours in advance," and give information to Flighty users that airlines often decline to share. The result is more control over travel plans.Flighty tracks late arriving airplanes, Air Traffic Control notices, airport operational issues, weather problems, and even major events that can impact air traffic, such as the Super Bowl.

Information on air space delays is limited to the United States, Canada, and the European Union, though late aircraft, airport issues, and live delay trends are available worldwide.

Other new features in today's update include live airport performance trends, aircraft internal names, fixes for missing tail numbers, and clear in-app updates when flight schedules change.

Flighty is available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The app is free to download, but the delay features are part of Flighty Pro, which is priced at $4 for one week or $48 for a year. More information on the app can be found on the Flighty website.

Article Link: Flighty Now Able to Provide Early Warnings About Flight Delays
I dropped off Twitter ages ago. Is Jonesy, or whatever his tag name is, still an arrogant loon spouting this and that?
 
Why do people think that these services should be free or a one-time fee? You do realize that Flighty had to pay a bucketload of money yearly to provide this incoming stream of flight data. It’s the perfect example of an on-going service app and not a one-time product like a Calculator app.
Remarkable how some people excitedly want to pay $1000+ to big business for a phone, then get stroppy about paying a small developer $4 for an app that makes that phone more useful. 🤷‍♂️
 
Why do people think that these services should be free or a one-time fee? You do realize that Flighty had to pay a bucketload of money yearly to provide this incoming stream of flight data. It’s the perfect example of an on-going service app and not a one-time product like a Calculator app.

It's the inevitable outcome when a lot of stuff happened to be free for a long time.

That being said, I can understand that there may be quite a large gap between what developers think their app should be worth and what consumers are willing to pay for it. I can think of a couple of examples that I would use because they are free, but would never pay for a subscription. Flighty is such an example for me because I just don't fly enough and I'm not sure it adds enough value for my limited use case.
 
In my recent experience, Flighty is not very useful for flights within Europe (I did have Pro). When Flightradar 24 had already shown the tail number of the plane for hours, Flighty still displayed "not assigned". And it kept showing the flight as "On time" even though on FR24 I could see that the plane had accumulated serious delay on previous legs. Basically, it showed the same thing the airport displays did, not earlier and not more. I guess it's more useful for US travelers, as it gets good reviews there.
 
This app is highly regarded on flyertalk, but the issue is that airlines stick to their own rules.

For example, flighty will tell you that your flight will be delayed by two hours as the incoming aircraft that will serve your flight is 2 hours late leaving wherever it's coming from.

So you get to the airport later than planned, so as not to waste your time. Except the airline has closed the check-in desks and you miss your flight.

Or your airline decides not to wait and uses one of their spare aircraft to run your flight on time. Flightly works this out, but doesn't give you enough time to get to the airport.

As for the price, my understanding is that they pay for their data feed and it's not cheap.
 
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I'm on the annual, may just go lifetime when my renewal comes up.

Coming up on 300 flights and I would not be without it. (and TripIt)

Does the lifetime plan get discounted like an 'upgrade' or do you end up paying even more?
 
In my recent experience, Flighty is not very useful for flights within Europe (I did have Pro). When Flightradar 24 had already shown the tail number of the plane for hours, Flighty still displayed "not assigned". And it kept showing the flight as "On time" even though on FR24 I could see that the plane had accumulated serious delay on previous legs. Basically, it showed the same thing the airport displays did, not earlier and not more. I guess it's more useful for US travelers, as it gets good reviews there.

Same experience across multiple flights in China recently, although the release notes for this update suggest it should be improved now - has come a little late for me to test, unfortunately.
 
I travel a fair bit (a couple of times each month) and I've tried Flighty, but I really don't see the benefit of the app. Most airlines (at least the ones I prefer to travel with) have good apps themselves, and not sure what Flighty offers that's so good I should pay for it. For those who do pay for it, what is your main reasons you do?
 
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