My Digital Life

Mobile Apps from the Federal Goverment

This a collection of smartphone apps (mostly iPhone) and mobile websites developed by the Federal Goverment.

APPS

Mobile websites - Airline travel information

I have been thinking for a while that I should establish a list of web sites which render correctly on mobile devices. I have created a new category called Mobile Websites and will periodically post the web sites I use. The sites that I post work well on Windows Mobile Pocket Explorer and the iPhone Safari browsers.

My first post is on Airline travel information. I find this to be a very important category since travel these days is just a horrendous experience. The more information you have the better off you will be. That said, in a lot of situations even with information you are not in control, but at least it gives you a better picture of what is happening since the airlines don't always provide accurate information.

pocketpcthoughts.com posted this site http://mobile.flightstats.com. I have used it before and was not very impressed with the quality of the flight status information, however it looks like they have added some very useful features. When you are waiting at a gate for an aircraft to arrive which will end up being the aircraft for your flight, it is very useful to know the flight number so you can determine if it is on time and whether it will affect your flights departure time. In the past I have walked up to the arrival monitor to determine the flights number based on the gate. This is a little tedious since the flights are listed by city, but it works.  Flightstats now has a feature (departures & arrivals) which allows you to determine the flights arriving at your airport, by time and airline. It is too bad they don't have the gate information on the first screen, however you can drill down on each flight to view the arriving gate information.

The home page for FlightStats.

Checking FAA airport delays is very useful. I also use this FAA web site: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/plaintext.html.

This is another handy feature which provides you with historical information from the TSA web site on security wait times at airports during a given time period.

Most airlines now have mobile web site you can check flight status. I find those to be the most accurate, but having another source is good.