The holiday season brings a festive dose of gift-giving, party hosting, and much-needed vacations. If you are traveling at the end of the year or around New Year's, I recommend getting on board with my obsession: real-time flight tracking.

Flight tracking can be a fun hobby or a useful tool to stay up-to-date on a loved one's travels. When traveling, a flight-tracking app can help to make sure you're notified about your flight details and any changes that might happen -– oftentimes even ...

US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has signed with the popular flight tracking website Flightradar24, to access its live and historic global flight data.

Wait times: According to data MIA, from Nov. 16 to Nov. 19, average wait time across all TSA checkpoints at the airport ranged from 3 minutes, 51 seconds to 5 minutes, 44 seconds. Find the fastest TSA checkpoint for your flight with MIA’s real-time updates on checkpoint wait times online.

To get accurate flight details, always include the airline name along with the standard two-letter airline code and flight number, such as QP1801 for Akasa Air or 6E2307 for IndiGo.

American Airlines passengers can check their flight status online at aa.com or via the airline's mobile app. Flight status can be tracked by flight number or city pair. See real-time flight tracking on websites like FlightAware and Flightradar24.

Given all the confusion about U.S. flights these days, many consumers are turning to flight-tracking Web sites to find out what is happening to flights with friends and family on them. Here’s how I was able to use it after American Airlines 587 went down.