Inbound Flight Alerts

An app for sending text alerts about plane flights.

Overview

Inbound Flight Alerts watches a few specific flights (Empire Airlines 7275, FedEx 1123, and FedEx 1106) and sends a text when one of them gets within 75 miles of Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW). Each text says how far out the plane is, its altitude and speed, and roughly how many minutes until it arrives:

FX1123 is 42 mi from Alliance, 18,500 ft, 410 kt, ~5 min out.

Features

Live tracking of chosen flights near Alliance Airport
Text alerts with distance, altitude, speed, and estimated arrival
Flight lookups (route, schedule, delays, aircraft) through FlightAware
Extra tools to list every aircraft near Alliance, or every FedEx plane over the US

How it works

Every 60 seconds, the script asks the OpenSky Network for live positions of aircraft in a box around KAFW and keeps the ones within the alert radius. It matches their callsigns against the tracked flights, converting airline codes as it goes (FlightAware uses FX1123, OpenSky reports FDX1123). When a tracked flight is airborne and in range, it sends the alert through the Twilio API.

Built with

Python with requests
OpenSky Network API for live aircraft positions
FlightAware AeroAPI for flight schedules and details
Twilio for sending text messages

Privacy and terms

If you sign up for text alerts, see the privacy policy for how your phone number and information are handled, and the terms and conditions for the rules of the text alert program.

Links

Source code on GitHub