The Best Travel App for All Your Flights: Flighty

I want to start off this article by sharing three truths.

First, this post is in no way, shape, or form sponsored by Flighty. When I was considering the pro membership, I was a little hesitant about the price, so I emailed them asking if I could write a post in exchange for a discount. They never responded. I also don’t get any kickbacks if anyone signs up after reading this article.

Second, Flighty is currently only available on iOS, so iPhones or iPads. I really wish they had an Android version so that I could become Flighty friends (more on that later) with my dad, but it sounds like that isn’t in the works quite yet. It’s an even bigger bummer because it sounds like another similar travel app that was available on Android, App in the Air, recently shut down. So if you stop reading here because you’re an Android user, I’m not offended.

Third, I am nerdy about flight tracking in a way that I think few other people are. From the very first flights I ever took, at age 18, I made a note somewhere with the date of the flight and my itinerary. This habit would continue through a semester abroad in London, several years as a traveling health care consultant, and two years living in Madrid. By the time I turned 30, when I decided to gift myself Flighty Pro, I had made a record of all 374 flights I had ever taken. (And then painstakingly loaded into the app.) So when I get into the really fun data analysis features, just keep in mind that your historical info may not exist to the same degree as mine. That’s okay, because I still think Flighty is worth it, even if you just use the free version.

Anyway, let’s get into it! Here’s why Flighty is the best travel app for your day-of-flying experience.

How Flighty Works

Whether you have the free or pro version of Flighty, it’s designed to be your day-of-travel companion. Once you’ve booked flights, you can either load them manually into the “Your Flights” section — or, if you have Flighty Pro and give it access to your calendar, it can automatically import them. It will show you a small map of your upcoming flight paths, as well as all your future flight information.

Your Day-of-Travel Companion

On travel days, I’ve noticed that Flighty often has the most up-to-date information about my flights — even more updated than what the airport screens or airline apps show. Many times, Flighty has known that there will be a delay, or what our gate number is, long before we would have received that information otherwise. (Spanish airports are notorious for not giving you your gate number until like 5 minutes before boarding, lol).

With Flighty Pro, you’ll also get day-of information such as where your incoming plane is, delay predictions, the reason for flight delay, your baggage claim number, and more.

And Flighty seems to constantly be updating and improving with new features, even in the less than two years that I’ve been using it. For example, in the screenshot above, you’ll see that it deems our layover in Dallas to be “Relaxed” — this feature was just added in the past couple of weeks, so it’s the first time I’ve seen that.

Flighty Friends

As someone who has been lucky enough to have lots of friends visit me in Spain — and someone whose parents still want all my flight info, even from halfway across the world — Flighty Friends has been a lifesaver. By clicking on the “My Flights” tab, you can switch to “Friends’ Flights” to find your Flighty Friends’ flights, which they added to their own profiles, or manually enter friends’ flights who aren’t on Flighty.

So I became Flighty friends with Matt, my mom, and my sister. When they load flights to their profiles, they automatically load into my Friends Flights’ tabs. (And vice versa — now my mom always has my flight info. This is where I wish Flighty had an Android app for my dad.) But I can also add other friends’ flights into the tab — they just don’t show with their name/profile photo.

It’s so useful because it becomes super easy to track other peoples’ flights, whether I need to pick them up from the airport, or I just want to make sure they made it to their destination. You can select the types of alerts you want for friends’ flights, so if you don’t care about notifications for things like “flight plan filed” or “tail number changed,” you can turn them off.

A week before our Spanish wedding this past August, we had a contingent of friends and family making their way across the Atlantic, many of them on different flights but at the same time. It was so cool to look at Flighty and see them all at varying points on the journey — you can see my mom’s flight has her profile picture because she’s one of my Flighty friends, while the others were manually loaded in by me.

Flighty History and Passport

Now to my favorite thing, and the whole reason I was inspired to download Flighty in the first place. Flighty keeps a record of all of your past flights, which gives you some amazing statistics and data visualization — especially when you’ve got hundreds of flights in there, like I do.

Not only can you see your entire flight history, if you have that available, but Flighty allows you to break it down on a yearly basis as well, so you can see your statistics for a year at a time. And then, you can turn that information into either a yearly or all-time flight “passport” which shows all your flights on a map.

It also can tell you things like your most flown aircraft, how many times you’ve flown a certain airline or route, the number of airports you’ve visited the number of hours you’ve lost from delays, which airline has had the worst delays, the number of domestic, international and long-haul flights you’ve taken, your longest and shortest flights, the number of hours you’ve spent flying, and even which days of the week you’ve flown the most. I’m obsessed.

Flighty vs. Flighty Pro

So, the catch with Flighty is that, even if you were to have all your historical flight data on hand, you’re limited to the last 12 months only. This was a major reason why I decided to go with Flighty Pro, just so I could finally have a use for the long flight-history note in my phone that I’d had going for more than 10 years.

It turns out that most of Flighty’s features that set it apart from other flight-tracking apps are exclusive for Flighty Pro members — but of course, it offers flight tracking and live “pilot-grade” data. And even if you just want to use it to share and track flights with friends, you don’t need a Flighty Pro account.

During your first flight with Flighty, you’ll get a free “upgrade” to Flighty Pro for that day so you can try it out and see what you think. If you travel rarely, you may be interested in the $3.99/week Pro subscription, which you can cancel when your trip is over. There’s also a $47.99/year subscription, which is what I have — or a $249 one-time payment, giving you access to Flighty Pro for life.

And they’ve recently begun offering a family plan, which is $89.99 for a year or $449 for a lifetime subscription, which you can share with up to six family members. Maybe I’ll be able to get Matt, my mom, and Carrie to go in with me next time my subscription renews. 🙂

 

Ok — now you know all about Flighty! Have you ever heard of Flighty, or have you used it? What do you think is the best travel app? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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