Is there a way to determine where a flight originates. In other words, if you have a flight number that you want to track departure and arrival, is there a way to determine where the flight traveled on previous legs of its trip. If you are tracking a flight from columbus to chicago is it possible to determine where it originated prior to traveling to columbus (e.g. a route from atlanta, to columbus, to chicago can you determine the schedule of the flight as it traveled from atalanta to columbus and its flight number if different?)
If it’s a fleet aircraft (airline, freight, etc.) I’m doubtful you can do that unless the flight number stays the same through the layover. The aircraft tail number isn’t provided for those flights. For GA flights, with the tail number as the flight ID, it should pop up in the history for the flight, at the bottom of the tracking page for that aircraft. The history seems to show flights no older than about 3-4 months; they say you can get the history back to 2005, but evidently you need to get out your wallet for that.
It is possible to determine where a particular aircraft for an airline flight originated, at least some flights. Search this forum for ACARS.
If you don’t mind waiting a couple of months you can determine the origin by going to the Bureau of Transport Statics On Time Database