How to Track Flights for an Event with 50+ Travelers

When you have 10 travelers, you can check FlightAware manually. When you have 50 or 100, it's impossible. Flights get delayed. Gates change. Cancellations happen. By the time you've checked half the list, the first half is already out of date.

SeatMax automates this entirely. Enter flight numbers once — SeatMax pulls real-time data from AeroDataBox (the same data airlines use) and keeps it updated automatically.

For every traveler's flight, SeatMax monitors:

- Scheduled arrival time — The original published arrival - Estimated arrival time — Updated in real time as the flight progresses - Terminal and gate — Used for pickup zone grouping - Flight status — On time, delayed, diverted, or cancelled - Airport — Verified against the event's allowed airports

When anything changes, SeatMax re-runs the grouping algorithm automatically. A 45-minute delay? That traveler gets moved to a later group. A cancellation? The Planner is notified immediately and the traveler is removed from grouping.

Flight data refreshes automatically on a schedule:

- Day-of events — High-frequency refresh to catch last-minute delays and gate changes - Upcoming events — Periodic refresh to track schedule changes and cancellations - Manual refresh — Planners can trigger a refresh at any time from the event page

Every refresh checks all travelers' flights, updates arrival times, and re-groups if anything changed. The audit log records every refresh so you can see exactly when data was last updated.

When critical disruptions happen — cancellations or reroutes to airports outside your allowed list — SeatMax notifies the Planner immediately via their preferred channel (email, Slack, or both).

Non-critical changes like delays and earlier arrivals are batched into digest notifications based on your notification preferences. You stay informed without getting spammed.

SeatMax has terminal-level pickup coordinates for 60+ airports across the USA and Canada. For airports like LAX, JFK, ORD, and YYZ, different terminals have different rideshare pickup zones — sometimes a mile apart.

SeatMax knows which terminals share a curb and which don't. Travelers at different pickup zones are never grouped together, even if their flights land at the same time. This means every shared ride actually works in practice, not just on paper.