Flying for the Holidays? Find Your Flight Status Using Your iPhone’s Hidden Flight Tracker

Now, many people are getting ready to fly and spend the holidays with family and friends. although it gets easier Find stable flightsas the season approaches, the influx of travel can bring many worries. Some are easier to manage than others, such as simple gate changes, but time adjustments and delays may require you to pay more attention to your flight plan.

During such a busy time of year, staying on top of your flight status is essential, and there are a number of ways to quickly check your flight details. You can check the airline’s app or website, Google the flight itself, or you can use the hidden flight tracker built into your iPhone.

That’s right, there’s a hidden feature on your iPhone that can track your flights and share them with a tap. Below, we’ll show you how to access Flight Tracker and share your details with others.

If you want to know more, don’t miss it How to use Google Flights to find cheap flights.

How to track your flight via iMessage

Before we begin, you must meet some prerequisites:

• make sure iMessage is enabled (It does not work with SMS/MMS messages).
• Whether you’re sending this message to someone (even yourself) or someone else is sending it to you, you need to include your flight number in the text message.
• Flight numbers must be sent in the following format: [Airline] [Flight number]such as American Airlines 9707.

Launch the native Messages app on your iPhone and open the text message thread containing your flight information. You’ll know the Flight Tracker feature is working when the text containing flight information is underlined, which means it’s operational and you can click on it.

If your flight is months away or has already passed, you may see a message: “Flight information unavailable.” You may also see another flight that is not yours as the airline recycles flight numbers.

You can also get flight details from Spotlight search

If getting flight information from Messages isn’t easy enough, you can also get detailed information directly from the iPhone home screen by swiping down and adding the flight number to a Spotlight search. Even better, this also works with Spotlight searches on Mac computers.

How to access hidden flight tracker

Although the airline name/flight number format highlighted above is the best method, there are other SMS options that will get you the same results. So suppose we stick to American Airlines 9707other options that may display the flight tracker include:

• American Airlines 9707 (no spaces)
• American Airlines 9707 (only one space)
• AA9707 (Airline name is abbreviated, no spaces)
• AA 9707 (abbreviation and space)

I recommend that you spell out the airline name in its entirety and add a space between the two pieces of information – like in the previous section – as these alternative options may not work for some airlines.

Track your flight details instantly

After everything is set up, click on the flight information in the text message. If this feature is working properly, you should see the following two options appear in the quick actions menu:

• Preview flights: View flight details. If you would like to see more information about your flight, please click this button.
• Copy flight code: Copy the flight code to the clipboard (if you want to send flight details to someone else via SMS or email).

If you choose Preview flightat the top of the window you’ll see the best part of this feature: the live flight tracker map. A line will connect the two destinations, and a small aircraft will move between them, indicating where the flight is at that moment.

Below the map you’ll find important flight information:

• Airline name and flight number
• flight status (Arrival on time, delays, cancellations, etc.)
• Terminal and gate numbers (Applies to arrivals and departures)
• Arrival and departure times
• flight time
• Baggage claim area (number of baggage conveyor belts)

If you swipe left on the lower half of the flight tracker, you can switch between flights, but only if there is a return flight.

If you want to know more, don’t miss it How Apple Messages now does the math for you and