rmyadsk

Hi folks,

rmyadsk here after a long absence. Back when I was a Northwest Platinum Elite (damn, now I feel old) I built Flying Fish for Windows.

Since then the industry has changed, mostly for the worse, I'm afraid, and I've stopped traveling for work. But I still consider myself an aviation geek (#AvGeek in millennial-speak) and want to do something cool for the community.

Proposition: between, during, or after a connection, you visit a website on your smartphone. You input your flight number, and you see where your airframe has been in the last month or so, along with where it's projected to be within the next day or two.

Would you use this? (And of course it's free)

Thanks,

Ryan

belfordrocks

Yes, but I sense I might be a minority here. Also, how does this differ from FlightAware?

Palal

Already exists though takes some digging. (e.g. thru flightradar24)

Efrem

I don't think enough people care about this to create a business model, even a modest one. The only aircraft history I care about is where it comes from on the flight before mine, and if it's already taken off from there what its departure time was relative to the schedule, so I can perhaps make a preliminary estimate of how likely it is to be late.

cur

great having you back. oh how the times have changed since the early 00s.

i'm a plane dork and i wouldn't use it. i used to work for an airline (on the ramp and i also interviewed for a network planning job).

planes either turn, park, go to the hangar, ferry, *shrug*. not too fascinating for me although i do have interest in network planning.

HOWEVER, there is an opportunity here: for expert travellers like me with flights ~ 5 hours out, it's very useful to know the equipment type and where that equipment is/where it came from. often airlines will keep a flight on time at -45min even though the equipment for that flight isn't even on the ground. HOWEVERRRRR ua readily provides this information on its app and the website ("where's my plane coming from?").

so i guess, yes, i would use this, but for a smoove journey more than curiosity.

flighaware http is clunky but still useful.

Josephmay

I Would but I really would put it in the nice to have category not in the must have. I do try and keep track of my planes in flightdiary. I find it interesting when I've been in the same plane multiple times.

TravellingSalesman

I'd use it.

JY1024

Off to Travel Tools for further discussion. Thanks. /JY1024, TravelBuzz co-moderator

Spoddy

It would be a good universal "where is my plane coming from and where is it now?" tool for every airline, as a complement to United's feature. I know I would use it, I've used United's many times.

Perhaps tie that into on-time and MRO info for projected swap-outs/mech delays, etc?
"What's the chance my plane will be delayed?" (something UA should have as well just for their 744 fleet!)
Also, "What's the chance of arriving on time?"
All in percentages, of course.

It should definitely be in app form as well. Even if it's just a mobile-friendly Webkit (or Android's equivalent) front end to the website.