During a recent flight from St. Louis to Oakland, I encountered difficulties accessing Southwest’s in-flight wifi. Instead of giving up, I decided to investigate and discovered a successful request for current.json in the browser’s network dev tools. This appeared to be the data that powers the flight status page on the wifi portal. Using the “Copy as cURL” feature, I found that I could retrieve this data using a simple curl command. I set up a loop to collect the data and started analyzing it. I visualized the change in altitude, ETA, and ground speed over time but didn’t uncover anything particularly surprising. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable way to pass the flight.
https://jamesbvaughan.com/southwest-wifi/