Did You Know Google Shows Instant Flight Status Information?
Google has quite a few search options that many people don’t know about (weight and money conversion, spelling, stock quotes) that display the information you’re looking for at the top of their page without having to click through to a specific site (of course the infamous “No Chuck Norris” search results in something quite different). But did you know that you can retrieve flight status information instantly just by entering it into Google?
If you enter the carrier name followed by the flight number, Google automatically retrieves and display the flight’s status including scheduled departure and arrival times, the actual departure and arrival times as they are adjusted due to delays, as well as the terminal and gate number for both ends of the flight (a nice feature for those of us who rarely print out our tickets ahead of time and need to know where we need to dropped off at the airport).
Clicking on “Details” below the information brings you to FlightStats.com (as seen above), a site that provides further useful information such as the status of the flight, flight duration, type of plane (for plane nerds like myself) and the ability to receive flight alerts via text or e-mail with updated flight information.
Now, if only the status of my butler’s activities were searchable, my life would be complete. “Jeeves, where’s my afternoon caviar, you’re four minutes late!”