Flight Delayed? Track Flight Status Directly From Your iPhone’s Text Messages

A massive global IT outage grounded flights for major U.S. airlines including American Airlines and United early Friday morning. The outage crippled Windows PCs, causing chaos at airports, financial institutions, emergency services and other businesses.

If you’re having trouble contacting your airline or finding the status of your flight on the airline’s website or app, there may be another way to track your flight without leaving the Messages app on your iPhone.

That’s right. There’s a hidden flight tracker built into iMessage that you probably never would have noticed unless you put the right combination of details into a message.

You can easily check the flight status and share the information with others who need it.

For more from Apple, check out how text messages get more expressive in iOS 18 and how you can also schedule text messages . If you’re interested in trying out these features now, you can download the second developer beta for iOS 18 here.

How to Track Your Flight Using iMessage

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

• Make sure that iMessage is enabled (does not work with SMS/MMS).
• You need your flight number somewhere in your text messages, regardless of whether you sent that information to someone (e.g. yourself) or whether it was sent to you.
• The flight number must be sent in this format: [Airline] [Flight number]for example American Airlines 9707.

Launch the native Messages app on your iPhone and open the text message thread with your flight information. You’ll know the flight tracking feature is working when the text with the flight information is underlined, meaning it’s actionable and can be tapped.

However, if your flight is still a few months away or has already passed, you may see a message saying “Flight information not available.” You may also see a different flight that isn’t yours, as airlines reuse flight numbers.

How do you access the hidden flight tracker?

While the airline name/flight number format highlighted above is the best way to go, there are other SMS options that will get you to the same result. So let’s say we’re at American Airline 9707Other options that the flight tracker can invoke are:

• US Airlines9707 (no spaces)
• American Airlines 9707 (only one space)
• AA9707 (airline name is abbreviated and does not contain a space)
• AA-9707 (abbreviated and space)

I recommend writing out the airline name in full 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.

Follow your flight details in real time

Once everything is set up, tap on the flight information in your text messages. If the feature is working properly, you will see the following two options appear in a shortcut menu:

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

If you select Flight previewAt the top of the window, you can see the best part of this feature: a real-time flight tracking map. A line connects the two destinations and a small plane moves between them, indicating where the flight is at that moment.

Below the map you will see important flight information:

• Airline name and flight number
• Flight status (arrive on time, delayed, cancelled, etc.)
• Terminal and gate numbers (for arrival and departure)
• Arrival and departure time
• Flight duration
• Collect luggage (the number of the baggage belt)

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

Also don’t miss how to get your iPhone out of SOS emergency mode and the hidden Safari feature on your Mac that makes multitasking a breeze.