The Helpful Amazon Alexa Skill You Need To Use When Tracking Your Flights

Flight tracking has been in the news a lot lately. A student who spent the last couple of years setting up bot-run social media accounts to track the private jets of public figures like Elon Musk was recently banned from Twitter after the platform's billionaire owner expressed security concerns.

While tracking the former world's richest man's plane may cause him some concerns, flight tracking is actually quite useful. For example, if you're picking a relative up from the airport, they may not be able to message you with updates about their flight. But you can track their plane journey to stay on top of any delays and avoid spending hours waiting at the terminal. There are many ways to do this, including several websites and apps. But a little known way to track a plane journey involves Amazon Alexa and one of the home assistant's many skills. Set up the Flight Tracker skill, and you'll have an easy way to get updates on a large number of flights with a simple voice command. You can't use the flight tracker skill to find out the location of Elon's Jet, but you can use it to keep an eye on commercial flights provided by several major airlines.

The Flight Tracker skill can be downloaded and installed for free by adding it to your account through its page on the Amazon website, or just by asking Alexa to activate the Flight Tracker skill. Once the skill is active, you simply need to tell Alexa to track the flight you want to stay up to date with. You can phrase the request in several ways, and the examples Amazon gives are: "Alexa, ask Flight Tracker for flight status for Delta flight number 15," "Alexa, ask Flight Tracker for status for Alaska Airlines One," and "Alexa, ask Flight Tracker for United 262." Alexa will then let you know how that particular flight is going.

Currently, the skill only supports a handful of airlines, though the list could expand in the future. The list also includes several major and domestic carriers, so there is a good chance the flight you've booked will be tracked through the skill. You can use the Flight Tracker skill to keep up to date with flights from Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and WestJet. It is worth noting that none of the airlines listed are involved in making or supporting the app, as it's entirely produced by a third party. So if any issues crop up, raise them with the app's developers. Don't go bothering Delta as they can't do anything about it.