Is there a way to see where your flight is coming from?

[yooperfan]

We are flying AA out of Chicago next week and I was wondering if there is a way to tell on their site where the flight is coming in from that we will be taking. The reason I ask is, with the lousy weather across the country lately, I was hoping to get a jump on any changes I might have to make to our travel plans. Thanks.

 

[dudspizza]

We are flying AA out of Chicago next week and I was wondering if there is a way to tell on their site where the flight is coming in from that we will be taking. The reason I ask is, with the lousy weather across the country lately, I was hoping to get a jump on any changes I might have to make to our travel plans. Thanks.

THe only way is if the flight number stays the same...... go track your flight on AA.com and see if it originates where you are flying from.

For example:
I was flying to Reno last year and my flight originated at JFK, stopped at ORD, and then on the RNO. I was getting on at ORD and knew it originated at JFK because the flight number did not change. Flight tracking indicated it started from JFK.

On the other hand, I had a flight MSP-ORD-ABQ a few years ago. It landed at ORD and we all got off. We had about 1h 15m layover. My connecting gate was the same, but I didn't think anything of it.... I went to get a snack and walked around... sure enough, I boarded back on to the same exact plane and flew to ABQ... I had no clue even when we landed as the flight numbers had changed...... I figured they would board that plane and we would be on the next one coming into that gate......

Duds

 

[Disflyer]

It is nearly impossible to determine where your flight is coming from, even if it has the same flight number as a flight you find arriving in ORD prior to your departure time.

I will tell you not to worry too much, the science behind determining what aircraft is used to fly what route is quite complex. In instances in weather it is not uncommon to switch tail numbers. What I mean is for example, say your flight is coming from JFK and the JFK - ORD flight cancels thus essentially leaving you without an airplane. There may be an airplane going from ORD-JFK around the time your flight departs to MCO. The ORD - JFK flight may get canceled and they replace your plane with the one originally scheduled to go to JFK.

I hope that was easy enough for you to follow. The point is airlines lose money every second the plane is on the ground and does whatever they can to minimize the amount of flights canceled.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[WDW Freak]

If the flight numbers are different, you can use a flight tracking site, like flightstats.com, to see historically for that day what flight landed at the same gate from which your flight departed. You can look at the plane type and time of landing vs. your flight's plane type and time of departure to see if they line up. It's much harder to tell for commuter flights, where many filghts are constantly departing out of the same gate or set of gates. You can keep going backward like this for each leg a of a plane's daily flight path.

It's a lot of work, but it is possible.

 

[bookwormde]

If you were more than a week out you can watch the flights and gate numbers for the same day and see what flight came into the gate your flight goes out of. Inside a week it is difficult.

boowkormde

 

[Alexander]

The only way we've been able to tell is at the airport. We check the arrivals board and see what is coming into our gate. It doesn't give you much advance notice though. Things change really fast.