Flying can be stressful, so anything you can do to make things simpler and more straightforward is always a win.
Enter a new viral TikTok from an ex-airline employee who shared her favourite travel hack, having flown a lot.
TikToker Darby (@durbinmalonster) posted a video explaining the single biggest time-saver she discovered while working for airlines, and all you need is an iPhone for it to work.
It's not a complicated packing technique or advice about airport queues, but rather a really easy way to get up-to-date flight information for any flight at any time.
Advert
All Darby advises you do is find out your flight number (including the airline code) and text it to yourself in a Messages conversation.
The example she uses is AA698 - meaning American Airlines flight 698 - and once she's sent this to herself in a text, it immediately becomes underlined on the screen as a link.
She then demonstrates how clicking on this link brings up the option to 'Preview Flight', which gives loads of information about the flight.
This includes gate and boarding information which will be live and accurate in the case of delays, and it can even show you the current status of the plane on its inbound flight.
Advert
Darby says she now ignores the big screens in airports, since they're harder to understand and you have to spend ages searching for your flight, preferring instead to just stick to her own phone for the details.
Best of all, you can send this code to someone else for them to easily monitor your flight. If a friend is picking you up from the airport, for example, they can check on your progress once you're up in the air and unable to contact them.
As if that wasn't impressive enough, Darby makes a great point: "If you have a connecting flight, text yourself both flights, the second you land, you can just click your link and know exactly what your gate is."
Advert
That's super convenient, and while plenty of people in the comments are pointing out it'll only work like this on an iPhone and in the US, others are blown away by how useful the tip is.
One popular comment kept things short by saying simply: "Woah," while another wrote, "I'm a pilot and didn't know that".
So, it's clearly not the most widely-known hack, making it all the more useful - be sure to try it next time you're getting a domestic flight in the US. It could save you a lot of hassle.