How can I know the date of the first flight with a given flight number?

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Accepted answer

The usual historical flight data sources such as Flightaware, Flightstats or Flightradar24 can go back quite a bit, though how much they go back seems variable. The top-level flightradar24 subscription says 3 years. Depending on the areas covered, there may be local databases as well.

So for recently added flights, that would be an option. For flights that have existed for decades, you can look up historical timetables, some people publish quite a few, such as:

You can probably find more if you search for a specific airline, flight, and/or period.

There's probably a bit of a gap between the time printed timetables became uncommon and more recent online databases, though.

Note also that the same flight number may have been re-used over time for different flights. It can range from changes in routing (from flights prior to the jet age which had to make quite a few stops for long routes such as the Kangaroo Route, to non-stop flights, for instance) to complete changes in the origin and destination.

Some flight numbers are even used for completely different flights depending on the day of week!

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