Last Minute Dash To The Airport, Great In Romantic Movies, Bad In Real Life! So Use This!

FlightBoard is a single-purpose app for the iPad that provides live airport Departures and Arrivals information. So the app’s function is a simple but ever-so-useful one, particularly for frequent travelers. I’ve been taking a look at the app and have to say I’m impressed. Here are my thoughts on FlightBoard:

Strong Points & Notable Features? It’s got a very simple and effective UI. It does look just like a good set of boards you’d expect to see at major airports. The columns it displays are: Flight/ Airline, Origin, Gate, Arrives, and Status. Everything you need to do can be done on just the app’s one main screen. You start by tapping on the Airports button at the bottom center of the app. As soon as you Start typing an airport or city name, it starts showing relevant results. You can tap on any of the main board’s column tithes to sort by that entry (by gate, arrival or departure time, status etc). One tap on a button at the top left of the app toggles between Arrivals and Departures information on the board. There’s also a search bar at the top right of the screen.

Navigation could not be any easier.

The search bar works nicely presenting results as soon as you begin typing. It found Dallas for me after just typing ‘da’. It finds even smaller airports like London’s Stansted, and even Georgetown, Texas. When you hit the Airports button it also remembers and shows airports you have recently used.

A single tap on an individual flight listing pops up a sharing bar, from which you can quickly share that fight’s arrival or departure details via email, Twitter or Facebook. There’s also a button on this bar that links directly to real-time flight tracking from the FlightTrack app (published by the same developers) if you have it installed. It looks good in both modes, but portrait mode does chop off the important Status column so it’s best to use it in landscape.

Weaknesses / Missing Features? None that I can spot thus far, though I am not a frequent traveler anymore so there may well be some that others will notice when using the app.

Overall, FlightBoard is a well-designed and executed app with a simple and effective interface that gives you all the information you want in just a tap or two. It looks like a must-have for frequent flyers and a useful app even for those who don’t travel that often but have visitors who arrive at local airports.