SMS Flight Updates?
 

Are there any North American airlines using garden-variety SMS to send flight updates to affected passengers?

I religiously sign up for mobile alerts with whatever airline I am flying so I can be made aware of delays. This is especially important for Torontonians like myself who use Buffalo as a starting point for our travels, a good two hours from home.

However, I have found that for the airlines I use most frequently these "mobile" alerts are in e-mail format, presumably aimed at the BlackBerry-toting masses of business travellers, of which I am not one. I have my cell service set up to send me an SMS when I get an e-mail, so when a flight is delayed, I know because my phone tells me I have an e-mail from the airline, but I have to launch my e-mail browser and download all my headers and the body of the one message I want to read, or call the airline to follow up. Nine times out of ten the e-mail body is less than 100 characters long, and could easily fit in an SMS.

That can be an expensive proposition, especially if roaming. On the other hand, incoming SMS text mesages are free for me, wherever I am.

I can't be the only one that would like a quick, short text when there is a delay, and I can't imagine it would be a hard thing to implement.

I would even pay a small fee to subscribe to a third party service, if one exists.

Thoughts?

Post-Script: I think UA, far and away my preferred carrier, does SMS, but their system is so tardy with their messages they are virtually useless. I'm looking for something that is text-based and WORKS.

AA has a very good and very reliable SMS service.
-W

I agree UA is not the answer! :confused:

FlightStats (http://www.flightstats.com/) offers an SMS-based service that seems to work for most North American carriers.

While I agree that AA's service is good, it does use e-mail as its "transport" mechanism. For example, my address for alerts is [email protected], not just XXXXXXXXXX.

They do, however, send out nice short messages.

and united does the same via it's "easy-update" service. i use the same format of [email protected] which at least for me has even worked while in france. you also have the option of e-mail and voice but to me a short sms is the easiest way to go. there are also other customizeable options such as what info to recieve and quiet times where no messages are received.

Hmmmm... so maybe my choice of carrier is part of the problem. My wireless carrier here in Canada, Rogers, stopped sending out the body of emails sent to [email protected] to phones way back, instead sending a message reading something along the lines of "You have recieved an email from [email protected]. Reply with "read" to view." I remember being PO´ed at the time, because I was using the service a lot, kind of a poor man´s blackberry.

Are you saying that when AA sends you an email to your phone, you actually see the content of said email? Rogers has been screwing me for so many years sometimes I forget what real phone service is like.