A hidden flight tracker on your iPhone can save you time and stress

Last July, a massive IT outage left computers running both Crowdstrike and the Windows operating system damaged and unusable, leaving employees at hospitals, banks, airlines and other companies unable to perform essential job duties. It was a mess.

For airlines, this resulted in the cancellation and delay of several thousand flights, and worse still, people planning to fly during the downtime even had difficulty finding out whether their flight was affected. That’s all in the past, and we hope nothing on this scale happens again any time soon, but you may have another option to check your flight status if your airline’s website or app goes down: your iPhone.

Hidden within the Messages app on iPhone is a built-in flight tracking feature that lets you view flight status details and instantly share them with someone else. We’ll show you how to do it below.

For more, don’t miss the best and worst airlines for flight cancellations and the best hidden features in iOS 18.

How to track your flight using iMessage

Before we start, you need to meet a few prerequisites:

• Make sure iMessage is turned on (it doesn’t work with SMS/MMS messages).
• You’ll need your flight number in your text messages, whether you sent the information to someone (even yourself) or it was sent to you.
• The flight number must be sent in the following format: (Airline) (Flight number)for example, American Airlines 9707.

Launch the native Messages app on your iPhone and open a text message thread containing your flight information. You’ll know the flight tracker is working when the flight information text is underlined, which means it’s available and clickable.

If your flight is still a few months away or has already passed, you may see a “Flight information unavailable” message. You may also see another flight that is not yours because airlines process flight numbers.

How to access the hidden flight tracker

While the airline name/flight number format highlighted above is the best way to go, there are other texting options that will get you to the same result. So let’s say we stick together American Airlines 9707other options that the flight tracker can display include:

• American Airlines9707 (no spaces)
• American Airlines 9707 (only one place)
• AA9707 (airline name is abbreviated and does not contain spaces)
• AA 9707 (shortcut and spaces)

I suggest keeping the full airline name and adding a space between the two pieces of information – as in the previous section – as these alternative options may not work for some airlines.

Track your flight details in real time

Once everything is set, click on your flight information in your text messages. If this feature is working properly, you should see the following two options in the Quick Action menu:

• Flight preview: view flight details. Click this option if you want to view more information about your flight.
• Copy the flight code: Copy your flight code to your clipboard (in case you want to send your flight details to someone else via text or email).

If you choose Flight previewat the top of the window you’ll see the best part of this feature: the real-time flight tracking map. The line will connect both destinations and a small plane will move between them, indicating exactly where the flight is at that moment.

Below the map you will see important flight information:

• Airline name and flight number
• Flight status (on time arrival, delay, cancellation etc.)
• Terminal and gate numbers (for arrival and departure)
• Arrival and departure time
• Flight time
• Baggage collection (luggage carousel number)

If you swipe left on the bottom half of the flight tracker, you can switch between flights, but only for the return flight.

For more, don’t miss how to exit Emergency SOS on iPhone and the hidden Safari feature on Mac that makes multitasking a breeze.