FlightAware Releases Flight Alert Sharing

I think this is great. Some of my friends are always asking what is going on at our airport, PMH. Thanks for a great website.

I frequently fly dogs for Pilots-N-Paws. This was make it much easier for the delivery and receiving parties keep up with my flight progress and avoid long waits at the airport.

Great job! I love it.

Great addition Flight Aware. Your continued services ae always appreaciated.

Excellent Idea. This is a big help when the situation in CLT causes surprise arrival changes.

Awesome! Will be great to keep everyone involved informed of a flights arrival.

Good Show!
Great Crew,the Staff There. Always thinking innovatively!
ON COURSE ON GLIDE PATH!

Cheers!

Bad idea to allow one person to set up someone else's email address for automated notifications of anything. That's what is creating the huge spam problem.

What is the huge spam problem you're concerned about, N6030X?

Dang. Situational Awareness. (all the time)
Perhaps, a Security Issue.
FLIGHT AWARE'S Systems could be 'hardened' and up-dated on a regular
(or irregular?) Basis.

I think it's great. I have family members who are always concerned about where I am flying next. They are not that "Internet savy" so this will be a big help. I am not sure why this concerns some. Saying that this will create spam is kinda silly. Thank you flight aware! Without you, my wife would worry constantly! She loves being able to know where I am.

It is considered poor Internet etiquette to allow one person to "subscribe" another person to any sort of email broadcast, unless you get that person's permission. It will only be a matter of time before the unemployed Russian teenagers find it and subscribe hundreds of thousands of people to random flight notifications. This is the origin of the need for "capcha" numbers and letters that prove you are human. Otherwise, it would take me all of about an hour to write a program that can add literally hundreds of thousands of bogus alerts.

But, I have two other than me I want to know about departures and arrivals.

Hmmm, I understand the spamming fear now. You have a point 30X. I'm still a fan though.

@Jack Cohen, they can sign up themselves. @James Foster, I agree it's too bad the spammers have to ruin all the good stuff, but that's the reality of life on the Internet.

I just tested this by signing up my son for alerts, and he got an email that notified him that he was now subscribed to my aircraft movements. It provided a link to opt back out again, but basically the recipient has to take the initiative to opt out, rather than it being an opt-in.

The only thing it allows you to do it send emails to someone whose email address you have (and could otherwise forward the alerts) so it doesn't actually create any new vulnerability for anyone.

I think you're describing CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). The implementation of CAPTCHA throughout the web is to prevent computer programs from being able to emulate a human and do something to the advantage of the program's creator. In the case of FlightAware Flight Alerts, sending an unwanted alert to someone is not to the advantage of anyone, and if someone were to consider writing a program to do so, they would be better served by having the program just send the unwanted message itself.

The unsolicited commercial email issue that is often protected by CAPTCHA (in the case of Gmail, etc) is to prevent people from sending THEIR content to email addresses, not to prevent sending other people's (FlightAware) content to them.

FlightAware has always had limitations on the ability to create alerts that send an excessive number of messages as well as the verification of email address of users who create alerts. With third party alerts, the recipient can opt out of the system or opt out of alerts from an individual sender.

This is a great idea but it did NOT work. Also the flight arrivals were inaccurate twice. Flight aware told the flight landed 20 minutes after the flight actually ended. No point in keeping up with this site.

My one and only forced landing was caused by bad communication. I was flying an aircraft with a serious engine problem. Another pilot has flown this aircraft the night before and was aware of the problem, but he didn't get word to me soon enough. With a tool like this I never would have taken off that morning.

I think a 5 cent Post-It Note would have worked better than an email alerting you that your friend had landed.

I respectfully disagree. A 5 cent post it note could have curled up and fallen on the floor. If our organization had a mandatory text alert protocol in place all of our pilots could have been notified with 1 email. I do think, however, that a SMS text alert system would be even better as it has a more urgent delivery mode. Your less likely to miss a text than an email.
6030 Xray, you are absolutely right about one thing. A note would have been nice!

My point was that these flight alerts will only tell you that an aircraft has taken off or landed. It won't tell you that someone was having some engine trouble. If you want to do that, that's exactly what Twitter is for. It's a distribution list for text messaging.

Your absolutely right on that. Thanks! GXL

GREG LUNDGREN U KNOW ALL ABOUT TEXTS ,LOL

you know all about texts and emails Greg Lundgren