It takes me about five minutes tussling with Flightaware’s Airline Name box before I can get my flight tracking.
Couldn’t it be a little more forgiving, say, with an auto-complete airline name feature or something like that?
Maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet, but I don’t think that’s it!
Any constructive ideas or comments?
Thanks, Flightaware, for an otherwise fantastic website. Sorry to be
belly-aching, mates!
If you know the airline’s code, just enter that plus the flight number (e.g. SWA1234) into the “flight/tail #:” box.
If you enter the airline’s name from the main FlightAware page (NOT a page in the forum), the name will appear in a pop-up box after a few letters are in. Example:
I enter S into the “enter airline name here” box. Southwest appears. If I continue typing ierr, the following airlines appear in a pop-up box: Aero Sierra Eco, S.A. de C.V.
Aerosierra de Durango
Sierra Express
Sierra National Airlines
Sierra Pacific Airlines
Air Sultan Limited
Sierra Expressway Airlines
United Air Service
Intercontinental Airlines
The same thing happens with the “don’t know the airport code” link.
Remember: If you type it in, you must be on the main FlightAware pages and not in the forum.
PS Spelling counts 
Thanks for the quick response Damiross.
At this time, I’m looking for a United Airlines flight. The actual eletronic
ticket says “OPERATED BY /UNITED EXPRESS/SKYWEST AIRLINES.”
Typing a “U” gets me United Airlines, Inc., alright, but how to make the jump to United Express? And if you have to type in the complete name
you MUST enter every single character (in correct order). It HAS to include everything, including the comma, the “Inc.” etc .
But…then the question: what if Skywest Express doesn’t show up in the little auto pop-up box? And must it go in as Skywest Express, Inc.,
Skywest Express Airlines, Inc., and so forth. These are the little pesky
things that sort of take up more time than they should. Oh. and let’s
not forget the D/B/A. It cannot be DBA (oh, so easy!), or even D.B.A.
Yikes!
What airline(s) are you searching for?
As a work around, it may be faster to search flightaware.com/live/fleet/ in your browser to get the 3 letter code.
When I type “skywe”, Skywest pops up.
You can get the actual flight by entering the flight number as shown in the timetable but this doesn’t always work because the operating airline doesn’t always use the same flight number. If you enter COA2224 or AAL5536 you will get BTA2224 or LOF5536 respectively. That’s because the airline actually operating the flights file a flight number that is the same as its mainline partner.
That’s not foolproof, though. American shows flight 4052 operating from CMI to ORD. However, the actual operator flies this flight as flight EGF52.
Skywest Airlines (it is not Skywest Express) is a difficult one to match up flights with its major partners because its flight numbers are usually different from that shown in the partners’ timetables. There are exceptions, of course (e.g. DAL3969 is operated by Skywest as SKW3969).
You may wish to look at the currently operating flights for Skywest by going to the “Airborne by Operator” page. This shows all flights currently operating that have a 3 letter code as part of the flight ID. Skywest’s operations can be found here
You can search via “Don’t know the flight number?” option and search the city pairs. As Dami said, the flight numbers probably won’t match up to the whatever is listed on your ticket.
Express flights are a bit confusing; they’re marketed as United/United Express, but they’re operated by a (often independent) different airline. You can either search for United and the flight number and if it matches the mainline->regional patterns we know we’ll display the correct flight; or you can search for Skywest and the flight number, but some times the mainline flight number doesn’t match the regional operators flight number. Another option is to use the flight finder. Entering “United Express” or “Delta Connection” won’t match anything, because they’re not air carriers.
My mistake. I entered AAL52 instead of AAL4052 to see if EGF52 would come it. It didn’t, as I expected.
EGF52 does point out something else: EGF has duplicate flight numbers. AAL3052 (the FAT-LAX flight) also goes to flightaware.com/live/flight/EGF52
You can go to the other flights between two airports if you can find one between there. Then you can find you’re flights. Not sure how much time that saves though.
Thanks, mates for your generous responses.
As soon as I get done flight tracking, I’ll come back on forum and relate the specifics of what I did.
For the time being, these excellent answers have provided the guidance I needed when I get “stumped” (of course, like everyone else these days, I like to streamline searches). Let’s see how tonight goes.
Cheers! 
A useful trick here is to know the ranges of flight numbers for airlines.
Back when I worked at Delta/Comair any flight from 1-3100 or so was a Mainline Delta flight, operated by Delta. Anything from about 3400-5200 or so was a Comair regional flight, operated by either comair or ASA.
At Eagle, the same thing occurs, low level flight numbers are mainline American flights, anything from 3200+ is an American Eagle flight.