Airport arrivals
When you’re collecting someone at the airport, it’s a good idea to check the details of their flight online before you leave the house. I learned this the hard way after being despatched to an airport to pick up a friend’s mother. We had never met before and we spoke different languages, so it was never going to be an easy task. Unfortunately, when I got to the airport, I discovered my friend had told me the wrong flight time and the wrong airline, which led to a lot of panic and running around as I tried to work out how I was going to find this woman! I succeeded in the end, by a process of luck and guesswork, but it would have made life a lot easier if I had taken a few minutes to check out one of these internet sites for airport arrivals information.
Flight Arrivals.com
This site allows you to search for travel information by flight number, airline, arrival airport or departure and arrival airport. This is perfect if you’ve been given incomplete or erroneous information by your lovely friends and family! It gives you a list of all the flights with details of when they’re due to land, when they’ve landed and if there are any delays or cancellations. British and international airlines and airports are covered by this feature. The site also offers more detailed information on weather and delays at American airports.
Flight Stats.com
The homepage of this site has a map which shows you, at a glance, which airports are suffering from delays. This is indicated by green, yellow or red dots on the map, according to the amount of disruption to flights. You can click on the dots for more information on the airport, weather and so on. The site covers airports all over the world, but the map feature works best for Europe and the United States. As with the previous website, you can search for arrivals information by flight number, airline, airport or route. You can also register to have alerts sent to you by email or text message when the plane lands, or if it’s delayed or cancelled.
Flight Wise.com
If you want to track the progress of your friend’s flight across the world and imagine what sights they can see out of the window, this site is the place to go. You can search by airport, airline, flight number or aircraft type, and call up a map with a drawing of the plane’s position and its route. You can do this for any aircraft or flight on an IFR flight plan anywhere in the world (that means most scheduled airline flights). You also get a wealth of other information including flight plans, altitude, speed, time elapsed and time to go before landing. So there’s no excuse for not being prepared to meet them when that time finally comes!
Airport Hotels.com
When you’re planning your journey to the airport to pick up your friend, you might find it helpful to take a look at the guides right here on Airport Hotels.com. We’ve put together useful information on 28 UK airports, including public transport options and details of short stay parking arrangements, for those travelling by car. In the current climate, most airports have done away with pick up and drop off areas right outside the terminal, so you will probably have to make your way to a car park even if you’re only stopping for a minute. Many airports offer a brief period of free parking for this purpose. We cover all the main British airports, including Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport and Edinburgh Airport.
Picture Credits
1 – John Wardell – http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnwardell/125588728/
2 – Flight View – http://mobile.flightview.com/
We’d like to hear from you!
Have you found these websites to be useful? Are there any other good ones we should know about?