How to Track a Flight in Progress

Last Updated: January 31, 2023

Do you have friends or family in North American airspace right now, jetting off to another North American location? With just a little info, and the right website, you can watch the progress of that plane as it makes it way towards its destination. If your friends are coming to see you at the airport, they will know whether to delay their trip to the airport.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Via Online Websites

1
Gather the information about the flight:
- Airline name or IATA code (designated by the 2-letter airline code that precedes the flight number, sometimes called the IATA code)
- Flight number (695)
- City of departure and/or city of arrival specified more commonly by another FAA-specified 3-letter code (helpful if you know the airport code).
2
Find a flight-tracking website to find out the information about your flight. Although there are some flight tracking websites that host free information for these flight details, there are some free ones that offer this without gimmicks, however thirdly there are also others that offer these services that are on a "per payment" site which tend to look quite spammy..

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3
Enter your flight information.
4
Watch for plugins that you could need to add to your browsers functionality to run the website. Sometimes, this plugin will include Adobe Flash or similar, but the browser must be able to have that plugin installed to run the site successfully and see your flight in progress.
5
Watch a map come up on your screen showing the route the plane has taken, as well as the current location of the plane and the expected route ahead.
6
Figure out if the website you chose has an auto-update feature. If not, you'll have to click or tap the refresh button in your browser to refresh that website. If it does, wait for the screen to refresh. Sometimes, there are buttons you can click to manually refresh the page that these websites have built into their functionality (but these button names will vary by site).
7
Look for ways to zoom in on the plane, if this site allows that ability. Zooming in on some site, can sometimes allow you to watch the progress of the plane.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Alternatives

1
Call the phone number of the company and ask them about the flight in question. If you need the phone number, you'll potentially need the phone number for the company that can be found online or from other airline documentation.
- Most airline flight miles portions of these airlines aren't set up to handle these transactions, but can give you the phone number to the company when asked.
2
Look at the incoming flight's details on the flight board at the airport (if you are on the gates side of security, past the security checkpoint). You can pretty much judge an approximate time of arrival.
3
Talk to the gate attendants at the airport gate your flight is supposed to meet at (if you are on the gates side of security, past the security checkpoint). Most will be more than happy to explain approximately where the incoming plane is at that current time - but be careful as some won't give you too much of an update and if you are incessant they won't give you any update at all so be careful. While some airlines just tell their agents to relay their departure and arrival cities, some can look on their computer and see approximately where it is, and will tell you.
- Be careful if they ask for additional payment to find out additional information about the flight.
4
Listen to control tower feeds of the airport either online (LiveATC.net is one of the more popular sites) or in the airport itself (if set up to host this information). Some uncontrolled airports (those that don't have official control towers) have details that tell you which planes are nearby that can give you a clue to where these planes are and their estimated time of arrival (ETA).

Community Q&A

Question

How do I track a flight from Newark Liberty International airport to Lisbon, Portugal?

Community Answer

There are many flight tracking software and websites available online or mobile by Android or iOS. For example, you can check out your or your partner's flight status by going on FlightRadar24. You can also view it on FlightAware's app.
Question

How do I track a flight that left JFK last night?

Community Answer

To track a flight in progress, you can use flightradar24.com. You will be met by a map of the world showing nearly every flight in progress. Simply put the flight number of an ongoing flight into the search bar, and it will give you the basic information like location, speed and STD/ATD & STA/ETA.