HOUSTON – Have you ever been about to get on a flight and wonder, “How old is the plane I’m flying on?”
If so, you’re not alone. So much to the point that there’s easy online ways to find out all kinds of details about the airplane your flying on.
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There’s some information you’ll need to get started.
The easiest way to find out all kinds of neat information about your plane is by find the tail number, or the N number. This is the five-digit number on the rear of the plane that starts with the letter “N.”
N stands for the United States national identifier. Other countries have planes that start with other letters.
The N number, or tail number, is like the VIN on a car. Once you have the tail number you can search the plane through the FAA’s N Number Inquiry platform.
What if you don’t have the tail number? This can be tricky.
The next best way to get started is by searching your flight number. If you look at your confirmation information from the airline, you’ll see some sort of flight number.
For example, let’s use UA1402. The “UA” stands for United Airlines and 1402 is the number. Each airline has their own two letters that go in front of the flight number.
You can search the flight number on websites like FlightAware.
Here you can see past and future flights of the same flight number. However, some platforms require you to pay to find your flight’s tail number.