How do I track my flight to or from Bristol Airport?

Text the flight number, nothing else. BA2490 is enough. You get the current status in seconds, and if the airline has moved the departure you see the original time with the revised time next to it, so you know exactly how much the day has slipped.

If the flight is not today, add the day: EZY218 tomorrow, or TOM257 24/12. After that you can stop checking. The flight is on our watch list and we re-check it every 15 minutes, so the next message you get is the one that actually matters.

Three things, and only these three:

• The gate. Sent the moment it is published, which at most airports is the piece of information people refresh for.
• The time. A new departure or arrival time, shown against the scheduled one.
• The status. Delayed, boarding, departed, landed or cancelled.

Nothing else. We do not message you about offers, and we never message a number that has not messaged us first.

Nothing. We use no paid WhatsApp message templates, which is what keeps it free, and that is also where the catch comes from. WhatsApp only lets a business send a free-form message within 24 hours of your last message to it. Track a flight a week out and then go quiet, and the live alerts will have lapsed by travel day.

The fix takes five seconds: send the flight number again on the day you fly. That reopens the window and every gate, delay and cancellation change comes straight to you. Reply MY FLIGHTS any time to see what we are watching, or STOP TRACKING to end it.

Text us your flight number. We track it live and let you know the moment it changes, then have a fixed-price taxi ready for your real arrival time, not the scheduled one.

That is the whole point of tracking a flight for a taxi firm rather than for a departure board. Your driver is dispatched off the live arrival time, the 45 minutes of free waiting run from when you actually land rather than when you were meant to, and a three hour delay does not change the fare you booked. Bristol Airport arrivals are from £39 fixed to the city centre, booked before you fly.

Use whatever suits you. These all work:

• Your airline's app. The most authoritative source for your booking, and the one to trust if two sources disagree. It needs installing and signing into, and notifications are easy to miss.
• The airport's live departures page. Accurate and free, but you have to keep going back to it.
• Flightradar24 and similar trackers. Excellent for watching the inbound aircraft, which is often the real reason a departure slips.
• Flight Watcher on WhatsApp. No app, no account, and the update arrives in the place you already read messages. Best when you are the person meeting the flight, or you are on the move.

Whichever you use, confirm gates and times with your airline before you travel. Our data comes from AeroDataBox and is usually seconds to a couple of minutes behind the airport.