Timely Travel Info in Your Pocket

The start of the summer vacation season is nearly upon us. Perhaps you, like many others, will be shuttling friends and family to or from the airport as they leave for favorite destinations or arrive back home. Given the recent turmoil in airline scheduling, it's a sure bet that you shouldn't head to the airport unless you've recently checked the status of their flight.

When you're at home, Mac OS X's built-in Flight Tracker dashboard widget will do the trick. Just fill in the flight information and refer to it often to check the status of the flight you're interested in. In fact, combine it with a traffic widget, like TrafficGauge, and you'll be able to time your departure just right. I keep both of these widgets running in the Dashboard of my home automation server and use them regularly.

But who wants to stay home, anxiously waiting for the right moment to depart? Not I, or at least not now that the weather has improved here in Chicago. I've recently become enamored of FlightStats.com's mobile interface. Although it's not specifically designed for the iPhone, it works fine on that device, thanks to the ability to add Webclips.

Here's how I use it. The morning of the flight, I visit mobile version of Flight Stats using Safari on my iPhone. I fill in all the necessary information about the flight I'm interested in, and then tap Submit. When the current status is displayed, I then add a webclip so I can easily retrieve the current data with a single tap.

And it almost goes without saying that you don't need a mobile replacement for TrafficGauge; the built-in Google Maps application on the iPhone shows you real-time traffic on the exact route you're driving.

Using these two tools, it's easy to keep track of when you need to head to the airport, and still accomplish other things, too.

Now I should point out that FlightStats isn't at all up to the aesthetic standards of most Mac or iPhone users. Also, it would be a lot more useful if it allowed you to create bookmarks (webclips) for flights beyond the current day. What I'd like to do, for example, is save webclips for both my departure and return flights before I leave home, so I don't have to futz around with doing so while on the road. But despite its flaws, I'm finding it a useful tool. Do you have alternative that works well for you? Leave a comment so we can all learn from your experience. And Bon Voyage!