New Flight Tracker for mobile devices

#1

I just noticed the new mobile site on the Iphone. Pretty cool, similar to an actual app. Infact it doesnt crash like the actual iphone app. I really like the new mobile site!!

#2

Although the maps on the new mobile site dont work.

#3

I love FA, but there is a reason why I preferred the mobile site over the app. I’m on a Droid but its essentially the same thing. The new mobile site is not as simple to use as before and it’s actually quite frustrating, but hopefully I’ll get used to it.

#4

If the maps worked on the mobile site, I would use it over the actual app.

#5

Thanks for reporting this; the maps should work now. Reload the page and give it another try.

#6

It’s still inconvenient. I have a FlightAware KOMA bookmark on my phone and it used to be so easy to just hit that and see everything, map, arrivals, departures, en route, and scheduled departures, all in a matter of seconds. Please keep the app the way it is and the mobile browser version the way it used to be. I can’t use any of the features like track by route, track by flight number, etc., either.

#7

I think the new mobile site is terrible. It used to be so easy to look down the list of arriving flights, ETAs, and aircraft types. Now, we barely get any info, and unless I’m seeing things wrong, I only get one page of inbound flights, even if plenty more are scheduled. PLEASE, revert or at least provide functionality to be able to view the old mobile site, or the desktop version on mobile devices.

#8

Thanks for invading my phone. Ask first, and allow me to opt out of your “improvements.” You just went from good to klunky. Congratulations!

#9

I’m not a fan. The new mobile page is is cluttered, hard to understand and the maps are useless. You have to click multiple times into new pages to get where you want. Simplicity is best, and thats what you had on the previous version of the mobile page.

#10

I agree with a lot of the sentiment on this page. I would love the option to access the old mobile site, and if that’s not an option, then to give us the option for access to the full-version website. With the new version, you lose the ability to take a quick at-a-glance view of an airport’s activity.

#11

tgpopel, you can access the full page from the new mobile page. Go to flightaware.com and there will be a link at the very bottom to access the full site. This is what I’ve been using since the change.

#12

Thanks for that tip, A2EVOMR. They should put that link on all pages.

#13

Ahh man, I loved the old mobile site, this update is not working for me at all. Previously it was one simple page to see all Arr/Dep/EnRoute/Sched. plus the traffic map! I never used the iphone app, as I was always looking for a quick overview of ALL events at a specific airport quickly. It was very handy to click the bookmark on my home screen corresponding to the airport I wanted to look at, then see what traffic has Arr/Dep/En Route/Sched., to decide what I did for lunch (boring or fun-filled!!).

Now to get the same information, I have to click 5 times once the page loads to see the same information that previously only had to scroll through the page.

Sorry for the neg. feedback on this, just my opinion as a user.

Spinner, trying to figure out where to go for lunch now…

#14

I am VERY disappointed with this move to remove full page functionality from the mobile devices, and substitute it with … this. I don’t know how to call it. Why, why oh why you guys did it? Its horrible. Its useless.
Move like that killed Flytecomm. They joined forces with Hellokitty aka Helloflight and went to this dead end road.
Now when I check flightaware on my iphone I want to cry. Seriously, why would you do something like that to thousands of people who ventures every day to flightaware?

Right now I can’t check more than 15 flights en-route. And whats the point of showing this flashy airline logo? Who cares about it?

Please, I beg you. Stop this madness. This is so bad. Right now flight information supplied by flightaware is on the same level as information that typical user would find on airlines web pages. Why would they come to flightaware if they could do the same at ual.com or delta.com etc?

I started with fboweb.com, then they decited to ‘improve’ services, I switched to redone.com. After a while they also did something stupid. Flytecomm.com had the edge for flight tracking for general public, airline employees and aviation enthusiasts like myself. Then they decided to ‘improve’ their site merging with helloflight. I jumped the ship and found new home at flightaware. Now when I look at the flights on my mobile devices I’m sick. Its deja vu all over again. Please abandon this thinking ‘outside the box’ and stick what you did best. Fast, easy and simple flight tracking. PLEASE GO BACK!
What you are doing right now is exact carbon copy of flytecomm. Its useless, unless your flight arrives within couple of hours.
I don’t know what else to say. I can only tell you that you will lose A LOT of people with this new format.

Disappointed

#15

While FlightAware has gotten a lot of good features, there are also features that have been “improved.” Why? Features like the average air fare, moving the aircraft type halfway down the box, etc., etc. Maybe they are good for improving their programming skills but it is lousy from the point of view of the person who uses the service.

#16

I love complaints about something that is free…

#17

Because its free, it doesn’t mean that can be bad. Did you ever hear this? If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it?

#18

While it is free to most users, FlightAware does make money with the program through advertising. If too many people stop using it because of “improvements” then the advertising revenue will go down.

What about the users that do pay for the service? Should they be subjected to improvements to things that ain’t broke?

#19

Thanks for the feedback - we appreciate it and we’re sorry to hear you’re disappointed with the new interface.

You can always access the the desktop site from the link at the bottom of flightaware.com (soon to be on the bottom of all mobile pages).

Can you explain a bit more about your use case where you’re trying to find en route flights hours in advance at busy airports? Are you a pilot, passenger, airport operator/FBO, airline employee, enthusiast, or another relationship to the flight operations?

#20

I am aviation photographer, enthusiast, working in aviation field. I can deal with blocked flights (I get that info from airport ops if something special is coming).

Knowing information about aircraft arriving in advance is important for all photographers. You can check all enroute flights and you can plan your day, figure out location based on time, sun position. It gives enough time to check upcoming weather condition etc.
Let say, when I’m out spotting with guys we check flightaware on our phones every 3-5 minutes. Checking flights enroute and scheduled departures.
So when I’m out spotting, I check flight aware constantly during my 4-6 hours at the airport. Flightaware is the primary tool at our local spotting group (and we have 200+ active members).
For example today. South African brought ZS-SXD in London 2012 Olympics colors. At 4pm I couldn’t check departure time because it was showing only handful of flights. Most of them before 4:30pm departure time. If I couldn’t do it on flightaware, I would have gone to saa.com and check the departure time on their web page.

We’ve been discussing internally new flightaware transformation, and we all agreed that this wont work.
All other sites, like flightstats, flightarrivlas or any other generic site can provide more flight data then flightaware can. Is that really what you want? Its easier to collect more arrival / departure data from these sites. Even flytecomm (helloflight) provides more information.

I was talking today to guys from nycaviation. They agreed that what flightaware is doing is not the proper step. I will leave it at that.

To the person who said "I love complaints about something that is free…"
rw812 explained to you in detail how does it work. If the site wont generate lots of traffic their advertisement earning will shrink.
Also, I can tell that you are visiting flightaware once a week to track a flight. Otherwise you would noticed significant difference.
At last, why flightaware provides this flight tracking for free?
I can tell you why. To generate traffic to the site, so they can generate revenue from adds. They are not charity organization. They make money on this site.
So why not make most out of it?

Going back to flightaware.com viewing as full page. Its not the same. Before when I clicked on En-Route or Departures my page adjusted automatically. Now I have to resize it and move it. And thats for every page (when I click NEXT).

Thats all I had to say in this subject.

Thanks