Some travelers have become nervous about flying on Boeing planes after a string of highly publicized technical issues, including the door plug that simply fell off an Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000 feet back in January. But is there any way to easily check the type of plane you’ll be flying on?
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The new website, Am I Flying on a Boeing, is an incredibly straightforward way to learn the kind of aircraft you’ll be boarding for any upcoming flights. All you need is your flight number and the date you’re flying.
“Boeing’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. Put in your next flight number and check your fate,” the website explains.
The site was created by an X user named Shrey Gupta, who told Gizmodo over email on Thursday that he’s the founder of a new travel startup called Anecdote. And even while the site is pulling data from a global distribution system (GDS), he warns there aren’t any guarantees of its accuracy.
“Various sites that you may use for booking your flights (e.g. Google Flights) will also mention the aircraft name and also use GDS data, but they usually tuck that info behind a dropdown or put it in gray text. I figured I could just help make that info a little more visible,” Gupta said.
As Gupta notes, this isn’t the first website that lets you check whether you’re flying a Boeing plane. But since it’s pulling the most recent information, his site does appear to be the most up-to-date.
“Airlines swap out planes all the time so while it’s hard to guarantee the aircraft on departure day, we use live GDS data under the hood to see exactly what plane you’re currently scheduled to fly on. It’s NOT just relying on historical data as other sources do,” Shrey wrote Thursday on X.
All of that said, there’s no evidence that flying on Boeing planes, many of which were built decades ago, is something you should necessarily avoid to remain safe. Many of the problems reported since the door-plug incident in January are maintenance issues that Boeing isn’t responsible for. Blaming Boeing because a 737 that was built in the 1990s has a cracked window is a little like blaming Honda when someone’s 2010 Accord gets a flat tire.
And there’s evidence that minor aviation problems are simply getting more attention since that door plug fell out of the sky. So go ahead and check to see if your flight has a Boeing aircraft. But even with some high-profile disasters in recent years—including a Boeing 737 Max crash in 2018 that killed 189 in Indonesia and another in 2019 that killed 157 in Ethiopia—air travel is still one of the safest ways to get around.
Updated with comment from Shrey Gupta.