Wednesday 25 July 2012

Relevance of Flight Status And Media Of Delivery To Users


The real time information about flight status is helpful to passengers, near and dear ones of the passengers, air traffic controllers (ATCs) and the emergency rescue teams for their respective needs. The passengers in the flight would like to know it so as to prepare themselves for disembarking from the plane. The near and dear ones would like to know the arrival or departure times so as to reach the airport in time. ATCs use this information to ensure that the airspace traffic is managed properly and accidents are avoided by conveying instructions to the pilots. In case of any mishap, this information helps the rescue teams to pinpoint the location where the mishap has happened enabling these to reach the spot without wasting time.
Flight status is determined on the basis of the location of flight in terms of longitudes and latitudes and by being in regular communication with the crew. Using the radars or global positioning systems, this location can be ascertained and by being in touch with the crew, what is happening during the course of flight (weather, in-flight conditions, etc.) can be known. Both these elements together form the flight status information.
These days there are many ways in which this information can be provided to you. It could be done by the airline, agency or airport. It can also be provided by third parties using the software tools which aggregate this information from different sources for the convenience of viewers and deliver this information through various media such as their websites. Nowadays, the delivery of this information is also done by way of SMS to the mobile phones of the users. So, you do not use the computers or mobiles only for searching and booking the cheap flight tickets but also for getting the information of its real time status. The users are required to first send the SMS to the provider in a specific format which tells the airport code, airline code, flight number, date of flight and whether information is required for arrival or departure. Besides these methods, the traditional method of calling the airline of the airport is another way of ascertaining the status of flight.
It shall be understood that flight schedule is different from its status since the former is actually a time-table of flights operation whereas the latter provides real time information on location and condition of the flight. Status is updated in real time whereas the schedules are fixed. Status can be know for that very moment of time whereas schedule is drawn up before starting the flights between the sectors, so these are not likely to change in short term and frequently.

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