There's No Such Thing as a Perfect Flight but Flight Alert Tools Can Help

I used to love to travel.  In fact I was one of those frequent business flyers at one time in my career.  Now I avoid it like the plague. Airline travel these days can cause you a wide variety of frustrations and annoyances.

Sometime we are our own worst enemy:

1. We can't find our ticket
2. We forgot or lost our passport
3. We're late and miss our flight
4. We go to the wrong airport

Then there are the things that are out of our control:

1. Our flight is delayed or canceled
2. We're bumped
3. Our baggage is damaged or lost
4. We get food poisoning
5. We receive lousy service

Sounds nightmarish but there is a way to ease your pain. Flight tracking and flight-status alerts can be very important tools for travelers. FlightExplorer.com and FlyteComm.com tell you where the flight is, placing it on a map, and tell you what time it should arrive. FlightStats.com which is offered by most airlines, send off emails or text messages to your phone or Blackberry so you know if a flight or a gate has been changed. If you get an early warning of problems, you can be the first on the phone to rebook and update friends and family.

There are also websites that track flights to give you pictures of the plane's location instead of sending you the information: FlightView.com, FlightArrivals.com, FlightAware.com and FlightExplorer.com.

Try to stay calm, expect the unexpected, and use these flight-status alert tools and you just might have a nice flight.