Track Memorial Day Flights — Before the Cookout Gets Cold
Memorial Day weekend is the second-busiest travel period of the year. Know the second everyone lands so the weekend can actually start.
By Tom Walsh
Track a FlightMemorial Day weekend kicks off summer and, with it, one of the most reliably chaotic travel weekends on the American calendar. The Friday before is brutal. Flights out of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta back up in the afternoon as everyone heads to lake houses, beach houses, family cookouts, and wherever else the summer pull takes them. If someone's flying in from out of town to spend the weekend, there is a better-than-average chance their flight is going to be delayed.
The Tuesday after Memorial Day is its own problem. That return travel day consistently ranks among the most delayed in American aviation, and the flights that get stacked up at airports like O'Hare and LAX ripple through the system for hours. If your family member is flying home on Tuesday and you're waiting to hear they got back safe, you could be waiting a long time without any real information.
SkyText is particularly useful for holiday weekends because you've got multiple people flying on multiple flights, and the coordination overhead is real. Your uncle is flying in from Houston on Friday, your cousin is coming in from Boston, and someone else is on a red-eye from Seattle. You're not going to track all three of those manually. You set up a SkyText for each one, add your phone to all three, and then you go buy the charcoal and let the texts come to you.
At $1.99 per flight, tracking every flight of a holiday weekend costs less than one bag of ice. The tradeoff is that you're not the person calling everyone every two hours asking for an ETA. You're the person who already knows.
The challenge
What makes this difficult.
- Memorial Day weekend ranks among the top travel weekends for US flight delays and cancellations
- Multiple family members often fly in from different cities, creating complex coordination across itineraries
- Friday afternoon departure delays at major hubs create cascading arrival problems
- Tuesday return travel is one of the most delayed single days in the American aviation calendar
The solution
How SkyText helps.
- Track each incoming flight independently for $1.99, and receive all notifications on one phone
- Up to 5 people can receive each landing notification, so the whole host family knows at once
- No airline app needed — works across Delta, United, American, Southwest, and all major US carriers
- Automatic SMS means you're not fielding 'where are you?' calls from the driveway
Subscription option
If you're hosting family every holiday weekend, a SkyText subscription covers all your seasonal tracking without thinking about it each time.
How it works
Three steps to peace of mind.
Enter the flight number
Type the flight number. We verify it against live data.
Add your phone number
Enter the mobile number where you want to receive updates.
Get a text when they land
We track the flight and send you an SMS when it touches down.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Can I set up multiple flights for different family members arriving on different days?
Yes. Each flight is tracked separately for $1.99. You can set up as many as you need — one for Friday arrivals, one for Saturday, whatever the weekend looks like — and receive all the landing alerts on your phone.
What if a flight gets canceled and rebooked on a different flight number?
If the airline issues a new flight number, you'd want to set up a new SkyText for the updated flight. We recommend keeping an eye on the original booking and contacting us if you need to transfer coverage.
Does SkyText work for regional flights, not just major carriers?
SkyText covers major US carriers and their regional affiliates — so whether someone is flying a mainline American flight or a regional connection operated by SkyWest or Mesa, we can track it.
Founder, SkyText
Aviation lover who built SkyText because families deserve to know when someone lands safely. Has tracked more flights than he'd like to admit.