Why We Built a Better Isles of Scilly Travel Status Dashboard
- Jul 17
- 3 min read
If you've ever travelled to the Isles of Scilly, you'll know that checking whether your journey is running smoothly isn't always straightforward.
Depending on how you're travelling, you may find yourself checking several different websites to piece together the latest information. Skybus flights from Land's End, Newquay and Exeter all have their own information sources, helicopter services have another, while ferry passengers are looking elsewhere again.
As regular visitors ourselves, we found there wasn't a single place that brought everything together.
So we decided to build one.
Bringing Everything Together
The aim was simple.
Instead of opening multiple websites and trying to work out the overall picture, we wanted one dashboard that showed the latest travel information for all routes serving the Isles of Scilly.
Our Travel Status page combines information from the various official transport providers into a single view, making it much easier to see what's happening before you travel.
Whether you're flying from Land's End, Newquay or Exeter, taking the helicopter, or travelling by sea, the goal is to provide a clearer overview without the need to jump between different websites.
Looking Beyond the Live Boards
While building the dashboard we discovered something interesting.
Live departure boards are excellent at showing what's happening right now, but they don't always tell the full story.
Occasionally, a service simply disappears from a departure board without any obvious explanation. It may not be shown as cancelled or departed—it just isn't there anymore.
For travellers, that can create uncertainty.
To help bridge that gap, we developed technology that doesn't just display the current status of a flight. It also keeps track of how services change over time.
By monitoring published schedules and recording when services first appear and when they later disappear, we're able to identify situations where a flight has been removed from the published schedule, even if no explicit cancellation has been announced.
Where appropriate, the dashboard explains that a service has been withdrawn from the official schedule, together with the evidence used to reach that conclusion.
Designed Around Official Information
Accuracy has always been our priority.
The dashboard is built around official transport information published by operators and airports. Where additional flight-tracking information is available, we use it to enrich the data by confirming aircraft movements and completed journeys.
This allows us to provide extra context while ensuring official transport information remains the primary source of operational status.
Built by Frequent Scilly Visitors
Reculver has welcomed guests to the Isles of Scilly for many years, and we've experienced first-hand how important reliable travel information can be.
Whether you're planning your journey, collecting family and friends, or simply keeping an eye on the day's services, having everything in one place makes life much easier.
The Travel Status page was built because we wanted a tool that we would use ourselves—and we hope other visitors find it just as useful.
Constantly Improving
The dashboard continues to evolve as we learn more about how transport services operate.
Recent improvements include:
Bringing together multiple official travel information sources.
Improved tracking of individual journeys.
Better identification of completed services.
Detection of services withdrawn from published schedules.
Historical journey monitoring to improve future travel insight.
Clear explanations showing why each service is displaying its current status.
Our aim is simple: to make it easier for everyone travelling to and from the Isles of Scilly to stay informed.
Check Today's Travel Status
If you're travelling to or from the Isles of Scilly, you can view the latest information on our Travel Status page:
We update and improve the dashboard regularly as new data sources and features become available, so it's well worth bookmarking before your next trip.
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