- Texting your flight’s six-character ‘flight number’ opens Apple’s ‘Flight Preview’
- The iPhone shortcut offers flight departure, arrival, and even baggage claim info
- READ MORE: How a bulletproof, full-plane parachute saved a pilot and his family
With nearly every airline asking you to download their own app and delays plaguing most airports, you’ll be happy to know there’s an iPhone hack to streamline air travel.
One TikTok influencer found a way to keep track of your flight and share flight details with your loved ones that’s as easy as sending a single text message.
‘The next time you are travelling, text yourself your airline and flight number,’ he said in a new video posted to the social platform. ‘Then tap on it and hit “Preview Flight.”‘
Not to be confused with your ticket or booking reference number, your airline and flight number is a six-character, alphanumeric code consisting of two letters describing the airline and a one-to-four digit number describing your flight path.
American Airlines, for example, always appears as ‘AA’ in a flight number.
You — and any friends or family you send this flight number to — will be able to tap ‘Preview Flight’ to bring up the latest information on the flight’s departure time, its arrival time, and even what baggage claim area your luggage is headed for.
You’ll be happy to know there’s an iPhone hack to streamline air travel. TikTok influencer Aakaanksh Autade found a way to keep track of your flight and share flight details with your loved ones that’s as easy as sending a single test message
‘Next time you are travelling, text yourself your airline and flight number,’ the TikTok influencer said in a new video post. ‘Then tap on it and hit “Preview Flight.”‘ You, and any loved ones you send this flight number to, will be able to bring up the latest information on the flight
‘All of your flight details will show up right here, so don’t have to check the airport screens,’ TikTok user Aakaanksh Autade, who goes by @kaansanity on the platform, posted Tuesday.
‘If your flight gets delayed, it will let you know right here,’ Autade continued, adding that the fact that you can send the code to friends and family is ‘the best part.’
Commenters and @kaansanity fans alike, however, got into a heated debate over where exactly Apple’s flight-tracking iPhone trick is actually available.
One TikTok user, who goes by Diana Monté, asserted that the hack ‘Doesn’t work outside USA as far as I’m aware.’
But others chimed in to report their experiences successfully deploying the iPhone shortcut in Canada, Ireland and Sweden. Multiple other users did comment, however, that they had trouble using the hack while at airports in the UK.
A few commenters offered their own workaround for those nations, recommending the free flight radar-tracking app FlightRadar24.
‘I’d rather use FlightRadar24,’ TikTok user DefoNotAvgeek declared.
READ MORE: What happened to MH370? Aerospace scientists give their verdicts on the leading theories – 10 years after the plane went missing over Malaysia
Although many theories surrounding MH370 verge into conspiracy, aerospace scientists and aviation experts have shared their verdicts on the most compelling hypotheses. The ill-fated aircraft vanished on March 8, 2014 after it took off from from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on its way to Beijing. All 239 people aboard are thought to have died shortly after the plane mysteriously veered westwards off course over the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean. It spawned a huge multinational search effort – the most expensive search in the history of aviation at $200 million – that was controversially suspended in January 2017.
