Track flights for free with Air UK Free
AirUK is an app developed by Fikret Urgan. It requires iOS 6.0 or later, is compatible with iPad and iPod touch, and is optimized for iPhone 5. A user can track flight statuses by following the movement of tiny plane icons. If you press on one of the planes, the app displays the flight number in green right above the icon. You can zoom in and out using your fingers or the (+) and (-) symbols at the bottom left corner. I checked a few of the flights online and they seemed to be accurate. I'm sure there's room for error as some flights might lose the ability to update their flight status in some situation. There is not a way to search for a flight by number however, so you have to actually scroll through and find the plane yourself, which is very inefficient.
The app is free but is full of advertisements. Some of the ads cause the app to crash. There are apps on the top of the screen which are irritating and distracting, and the full screen ads honestly make me want to throw away the app altogether.
When you zoom in and out to find a specific area where you would like to track a plane, the app takes a long time to load because there are way too many tiny plane icons that have to readjust their location. I'm sure it's still faster than looking up the flight status online depending on the airline. I think it would be better if there was a way to search for one specific flight number and let that be the only icon on the screen. I doubt anyone would want to know the flight status of every plane coming and going from their town.
AirRadar UK is very plain and straight forward design wise. It's clearly for utility and not for entertainment. A little more design effort could persuade a user to go "Pro" though. The planes are very low res; however as previously stated, there are so many of them so they probably have no choice but to make them small and easy to load all of the icons on a tiny mobile screen.
I would recommend AirUK to travelers and their family who need a fast way to check in on a flight status via mobile. This app is great for business executives, flight attendants, travel enthusiasts, and their loved ones who want to know where they are even when they are in the sky. From a car or from home you can check and see where a flight is and if it is on schedule for on time arrival.
