Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 15

Caticlan

I'm a bit confuse on how to state Godofredo P. Ramos Airport in the destination list of airports and airlines. The airport is located in the municipality of Malay, Aklan but most airlines refer to it as Boracay or Caticlan which is a barangay of Malay. So what should we state it? pikdig (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Are there still any "J.C." markers at the end of older runways?

In olden days many of the early airports had an interesting feature: the letters "J.C." spelled in (usually) white stones at the approach end of one or more runways. I know the history of how these markers came into existence but can anyone here confirm if any of these markers are still there, and if so identify which airports? Low Sea (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Sigh, I guess this means there probably are no more of these markers left by the Junior Citizens who helped build these airports. How sad that part of history is lost. :( Low Sea 18:25, 31 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Low Sea (talkcontribs)

UA SIN-ATL

User:Huaiwei continues to add "Atlanta" as a destination for United on Singapore Changi Airport. By looking at UA's schedules the flight to ATL from SIN goes thru a UAL hub (Which is ORD), we have had this long discussion that flights that go thru a hub airport should not be included as there is an aircraft change. Audude08 (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyone could claim there's no concensus on Northwest's NRT hub regarding direct-flight inclusion, but for U.S. hubs by U.S. airlines, the consensus is more than clear as evidenced by the countless airport pages AND the WP:AIRPORT guidelines. HkCaGu (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Interesting, for since when did Atlanta become a hub for United Airlines? There is no hub to hub flight here with regards to this particular flight is concerned, and as I mentioned before, just how often do supposed "frequent changes of schedules to the point of it being impossible to be tracked by wikipedians" inflict international flights? The official Changi Airport press release states quite clearly that "United Airlines will handle its first arrival flight from Atlanta (via Chicago and Hong Kong) at 2325 hours on Tuesday, 25 March 2008", and lists 12 new destinations served by T3 airlines which just moved, namely "Shanghai, Kunming, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Doha, Jakarta, Atlanta, Chicago, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Washington DC."[1] The Straits Times picked up the story and has seen no reason to remove Atlanta from the list:[2]. As I already repeated numerous times before, if anyone here wishes to insist on continously overuling WP:V, then kindly provide better reasons to do so other than "it is a pain to catch up". This is horrendously unprofessional, and underscores a reason why wikipedia's aviation-related articles simply arent taken seriously by real aviation enthusiasts.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
First of all, no one has asserted that Atlanta is a United hub. The hub involved in this flight is Chicago-O'Hare (which happens to be United's largest hub). Second of all, over time various media outlets (including newspapers, major international networks like CNN and the BBC, and television networks) have shown that many journalists have little understanding about how the commercial aviation industry works, and sometimes report information that is flat out false. To say that United serves Atlanta from Singapore is misleading. Yes, UA896 does include Atlanta in its itinerary, but the fact that there is a change of aircraft (going from a 747 to a 737) and terminal in Chicago (due to the nature of O'Hare Airport) makes this flight less "direct" than others. I can point out a few other flights on other airlines of a similar nature (with change of aircraft type at a hub) where the "final" destination is not listed for that airline at the origin airport's article and vice-versa. As Audude and HkCaGu have pointed out, there have been previous discussions and consensuses on this matter. MRasco 22:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
If a traveller attempts to fly from Singapore to Atlanta with one airline, finds it missing in our article, yet finds it appearing in both the airport and airline lists, and finally discovers that he was indeed able to make such a flight without much of a fuss other than getting off and on a plane at each of the stopover points, then it is wikipedia which is misleading, not the industry. Till today, not a single person has been able to find me a verifable and credible source saying a flight with the same flight number but involving a plane change is not a direct flight according to the industry. I fail to see much reason to be convinced to accept a blatant attempt to circmumvent WP:OR.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Proving a negative is kind of hard. However the first reference in direct flight does say you use the same plane. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
As I mentioned before, that single source (which is clearly far lessdetailed than the one I originally cited) does not preclude direct flights involving a change of aircraft.--Huaiwei (talk) 08:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
You are making the argument that we should list every single point every airline serves from every other single point. Virtually any two points can be linked by a single connection through an airline hub - Pensacola, Florida to Fargo, North Dakota. Just throw out the destination lists and get rid of them if we're going to do that, because they'll be entirely meaningless. To the person who is actually flying the route, there is no difference (except in frequent-flyer miles) between a fake-direct flight which is a connection disguised by a single flight number, and simply having two different flight numbers. They both involve getting off a plane, hiking through a terminal to a connecting gate, and climbing on a completely different plane. FCYTravis (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
You fail to read my comments properly, even thou they are in simple English. I said quite plainly that our destination lists should follow the industry definition of a direct flight, in that any flight with a single flight number should be included, irrespective of any plane change which may occur en-route. This is completely different from suggesting to list every single destination served via a plane transfer, irregardless of flight number. Kindly do not misquote me, nor exaggerate what I am suggesting. Next, since when is wikipedia a morale authority to "right a wrong" of the aviation industry by attempting to tell would-be travellers that they cannot fly from Singapore to Atlanta because they are going to suffer from an inconvenience in Chicago? Are we a (ethically righteous) travel guide now? Kindly do not access the situation from the POV of the traveller only. To the airline, a direct flight involving a change of plane means they face greater operational restrictions then if it was simply two seperate flights with different flight numbers, as the former must operate as a pair, whereas the later can operate independently. Passengers on direct flights enjoy greater convenience (the gates are usually closer) and greater assurance that they will not miss their connection (the second aircraft cannot take off until the first aircraft arrives). Are you aware of this distinction?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
"Usually closer?" Who's randomly speculating now? Any source for that? At ORD in particular, that's completely false - you just about can't get farther away than the T5 international arrival gates and the United T1 gates.
It's also not true that the second aircraft cannot take off until the first aircraft arrives. Two flights can be operated with the same flight number - it is done routinely, using alphabetic suffixes on the number given to air traffic control. If you've ever flown United, listen to Channel 9 sometime. It's quite educational. "United 974" can operate at the same time as "United 974 Alpha," which can operate at the same time as "United 974 Bravo." There is a relevant A.net discussion of this phenomenon here. If there are five through passengers to ATL on a delayed B744 SIN-ORD Flight 25, United is sure as heck not going to hold Flight 25's "continuation" on an A319 ORD-ATL just for those five people. They'll send out Flight 25 Alpha and misconnect the SIN pax.FCYTravis (talk) 08:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Random speculation, really? Did you actually read Direct flight and the accompanying source [3] for that? Next, so now a forum has become a verifiable source, but that's ok. I note the following comment "Often the ROC-ATL leg is delayed (like today!). If an extra ship and crew can be found, the second leg will be stubbed, meaning they'll grab the new ship and cew and use them. This is usually only done when the first leg is extremly late". In a normal connecting flight, would aircraft wait for each other until the other is "extremely late" in a usual circumstance?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I have refuted your comment that "the second aircraft cannot take off until the first aircraft arrives." If you choose not to believe that these suffixed flights matter, that's your right. I personally have flown on a "United 954 Charlie" 757 from San Diego to San Francisco. Anyone wanting to fly "direct" on 954 from wherever it originated that day... was hosed. FCYTravis (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you arent refuting my comment. You are refuting the source where I cited my comment from. If you can read my statement above correctly, I was clearly asking you if it is common practise for segments of a direct flight to be flown completely independently from each other (as they are on a connecting flight), and not if you have taken such a flight before.--Huaiwei (talk) 09:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
As to your comments about ethics - we are not here to serve the airlines. We are telling people the destinations they can directly fly from any given city. We are not required to adhere to the airline-driven fiction that there is anything "direct" about a "flight" from Point A to Point C via Point B, which, in reality, consists of two separate flights on two entirely different aircraft which has no practical difference from a hub connection. Otherwise, just scrap the destination lists and get rid of them, because we might as well list Fargo, Zürich and Athens as United destinations from San Francisco. FCYTravis (talk) 08:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
In other words, you are writing a traveller-centric set of articles in wikipedia, irregardless of what the airline people, the airport people, the pilots and staff, and what the industry is basically saying? So we are writing a travel guide afterall? Why did you not tell me this earlier?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
There are more travelers than there are "airline people." We are aiming to serve the public as an encyclopedia. If you want to believe the airline-created fiction that a flight number means there is anything "direct" about taking a 747 from HKG-ORD, stepping off the plane, going through customs, changing terminals halfway across the airport and boarding an A319 from ORD-ATL, that's your right. We aren't required to perpetuate that fiction. FCYTravis (talk) 09:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
And thank you very much for finally confirming that you are prepared to openly violate an official Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia:Verifiability states quite plainly that "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." You are absolutely in no position to right a "perceived wrong" evident in sources. Wikipedia does not discriminate amongst its potential users, and you have no right to do so. Wikipedia:About makes absolutely no mention that this site is aiming to serving the public (which leaves me wondering if airline staff are any less public). If "perpetuate that fiction" is not your cup of tea, than this site isn't right for you.--Huaiwei (talk) 09:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah... non sequitur. There's no policy which requires us to do *anything* w/r/t destinations. The policy requires us to have sources. Our current guideline is to list verifiable non-stop destinations, along with no-plane-change direct international destinations. It is verifiable from timetables which flights have plane changes and which don't. We don't claim to list every flight that an airline calls "direct." Nor are we required to include something simply because an airline might wish it included.
Yes, it is verifiable that there is a same-flight-number "direct" flight on United from SIN to ATL. It is also verifiable that said flight is really two flights, involving a plane change at Chicago-O'Hare. Both A and B are true. Our guideline says that if B is true, we exclude the flight. That's not violating WP:V in the least. FCYTravis (talk) 09:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
You know very well that you are trying extremely hard to worm your way around this one, FCYTravis, when it is peppered with nonsensical contradictions. A policy, for your kind information, takes precedence over a guideline, which is merely "advisory" in nature (but mistakenly enforced like a school rule book by a few self-proclaimed righteous, honest and ethical members here). If you fail to follow verifiable sources by attempting to omit information published by them, claiming the need to avoid "perpetuate that fiction", you effective violate all three key content policies, namely WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. There is absolutely no buts about this one, and you jolly well know it.--Huaiwei (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
You really couldn't be more wrong. There is no policy which requires that we include all verifiable information. There is plenty of verifiable information that we exclude, in fact. We use a guideline to help decide which bits of verifiable information we include, and that is perfectly acceptable. Because you apparently have no understanding of that, and are now just tossing out random policy links at me as if they mean something, this conversation is over. Good day, sir. FCYTravis (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I can fly from Fairbanks to Miami on Alaska Airlines. But nobody's listing Miami as an AS destination from FAI. FCYTravis (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course, my dear, because Alaska Airlines dosen't fly a direct flight between Fairbanks and Miami!--Huaiwei (talk) 08:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
And United isn't really flying a direct flight between Singapore and Atlanta. They have a single flight number between Singapore and Atlanta. FCYTravis (talk) 08:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
So does Alaska Airlines have a single flight number from Fairbanks to Miami?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports#Airport article structure #5 "List non-stop and direct flights only. That means the flight number and the aircraft, starts at this airport and continues to one or more airports." The plane changes in Chicago, and per consensus, we should not list Atlanta as a destination for Singapore. --Matt (talk) 22:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Very simple. If the flight goes thru a hub, then it is not the same plane. Therefore UA's SIN-HKG-ORD-ATL flight involves a plane change at its hub (which is ORD) then it is not direct. Audude08 (talk) 23:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
and you will also have to go through customs and immigrations at ORD to get to Atlanta since ORD is the first port-of-entry to the US for that flight. Audude08 (talk) 23:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Do we consider having to disembark to clear customs as making a flight not direct? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't think that really should come into play. It's more a question of, "does the same plane actually continue all the way through," for international destinations. If you disembark, clear customs, and get back on the same plane, that's a different story than "get off this 747-400, clear customs, ride a shuttle to a different terminal, then board a 737-500." The latter is a "direct" flight in name only. FCYTravis (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The SIN-ORD flight arrives that the International Terminal 5 in ORD so passengers can clear US customs, then they will have to ride the train/shuttle to Terminal 1 where UA has operations at ORD. Still (whether direct or not), you will still have to change terminals at ORD. No UA departures are at Terminal 5 at ORD. Audude08 (talk) 00:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Now when a bunch of wikipedians attempt to rewrite definitions for the industry to suit their strong believe that the "deceiving industry" should be put right for the sake of the clueless masses, I wonder...

  • Since whether "the same plane actually continue all the way through" has now been identified as the criterion for a direct flight here (obviously unsupported by any verifiable source), I am left wondering if SQ now operates direct flights from Sydney to London (via the same A380) and from Jakarta to Los Angeles (via the same A345)?
  • Since it has been decided that a "change of plane" is the absolute criteria to define a non-direct flight here (again unsupported by any verifiable source), I wonder if we should now remove Heathrow, Frankfurt, etc from QF's lists since the stop over at Singapore can involve a change in aircraft[4]? And since we are at it, can anyone point out to me an absolutely realiable way of determining whether a plane change occurs or not amongst flights operated by all airlines for this to be enforced across wikipedia?--Huaiwei (talk) 21:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Determining whether a plane change takes place is extremely easy, when it comes to U.S. airlines. With almost no exceptions (those essentially limited to a few Delta flights from ATL to Florida points), the only widebody domestic services left in the United States are operated between an airline's hubs - UA ORD-SFO, DEN-IAD, US PHL-CLT, for example. When a flight is said to be "direct" from some overseas point via an airline's hub to a third domestic point, chances are essentially 100% that the flight is not truly direct. The days when DC-10s plied the skies from ORD to CLE are long gone. FCYTravis (talk) 00:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the global aviation industry involved more than American carriers. Are you able to cite us reliable sources for all the world's airlines, or at least the major ones even? Or are folks here going to continually make guesses as what they are actually doing now?--Huaiwei (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Despite Huaiwei's insistence to the contrary, the issue here is not the definition of "direct flight", the issue is what destinations are served by an airline at an airport. I think the current WP:AIRPORTS definition of "the flight number and the aircraft starts at this airport and continues to one or more airports" is perfect, but it should be clarified that this specifically excludes some notionally "direct" flights. Jpatokal (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Despite Jpatokal insistence to the contrary, the definition of a "direct flight" continues to be debated as is clearly still taking place a few inches up this screen in this same section. I hope his eyes are peering upwards before commenting. The current market definition is one dictated by the flight number, not by the aircraft used. Period.--Huaiwei (talk) 08:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

CRK

After a moment of silence, I'm bringing back this topic up again because, I am firmly against User:Jpatokal stating Diosdado Macapagal International Airport as Manila-Clark. Why? Manila is only assigned ONE airport by the Air Transportation Office of the Philippines per [5]. It should not be stated as Manila-Clark, but rather Clark or Angeles City. pikdig (talk) 21:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan or Taipei-Taoyuan

Seeing that many articles have TPE both written as Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan and Taipei Taoyuan, should we list TPE in all airports as Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan or Taipei-Taoyuan? We need a consistency. Audude08 (talk) 21:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I support "Taipei-Taoyuan". When you board a taxi in Taipei and ask to be taken to the airport, you'll be asked which one, and the answer will be "Taoyuan" or "Sungshan". "Taiwan Taoyuan" is just the full name of the airport because it serves the whole island in a sense (as you can't fly to too many places internationally from Kaohsiung). "Taoyuan" is the functional word (and is the actual location). HkCaGu (talk) 21:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Having asked this BEFORE many times (read the archives), and getting little to no responses to it. I dont mind either way, but I would suggest that naming be concise and simple, which in that case is Taipei-Taoyuan and New York-JFK for example. If the TPE naming is going by its full name of Taipei-Taiwan Toayuan, I would strongly recommend CONSISTENCY of full-names to Airport be applied to the other airports. Therefore if going by Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan, I suggest this be applied to New York - John F Kennedy, or Paris - Charles De Gaulle to all other articles for example, as John F Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle is the official names of their respective airports. --Arnzy (talk ·

contribs) 22:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Dajabón Airport or Dajabon Airport

Duplicate articles for the same airport. Which one should stay and which one should go? -Canglesea (talk) 05:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Dajabón Airport is now the main article with a redirect from Dajabon Airport. -Canglesea (talk) 21:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Obsessive-compulsive date updating

Am I the only one that gets a bit annoyed when users go a bit crazy in updating destination lists as new destinations 'begin'? Due to the open skies going into effect tomorrow/today a lot of flights are starting and I see people removing begin dates even though in some cases it's not even the 29th yet! I just think it's a bit absurd, that's all. We do try for accuracy here I believe. NcSchu(Talk) 02:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I think some of this is due to time-zone differences... I suppose we should probably base our dates on GMT, just because that's what Wikipedia uses. FCYTravis (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
An IP user has solved the problem on London Heathrow Airport with User:NcSchu reverting the change (rightly so as it is not the 30 March) by removing all the dates including others in the future !! MilborneOne (talk) 17:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Same IP user is now hacking at London Gatwick Airport because he is making lots of very small changes in mutliple edits it is difficult to revert! MilborneOne (talk) 17:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
IP User:72.129.127.189 tired of trashing Heathrow and Gatwick has now blanked the GB Airways page - thought he was just being previous (although it looks like a USA IP) but page blanking is vandalism. MilborneOne (talk) 17:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Blocked for several hours as a vandal. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I just had to revert the edits of three different IPs who had caused chaos with the LHR destination list. I feel like we should get a lock on the page for a few days. NcSchu(Talk) 18:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
If I were to protect that article, I would need to see problems from IPs over an extended period of time and on a regular basis. I judge this from the comments included with the edits. I don't see a big problem with that article so I don't think you will find an administrator willing to block anonymous edits without evidence of a much larger problem. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Understood. I just feel like until Monday or so we'll see a lot of anon users try to mess with it again. It's really not that much of a problem unless other editors not aware of the vandalism make intermediate edits. NcSchu(Talk) 19:59, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Qantas to Vancouver??

Did Qantas resume service to Vancouver that I didn't know about? I could've sworn that they ended service to YVR in January. 58.174.3.141 continues to add it to the respective pages after his edits been reverted. Did they suspend the service or was I dreaming? Thanks! Audude08 (talk) 01:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


TPE article rename

User:Beautiful Formosa suddenly renamed the TPE airport page from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Taoyuan CKS International Airport. I have moved the article back to its original name. Did they rename the airport again?? I thought they just renamed it to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Thanks!!! Audude08 (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

President-elect Ma is promising to undo some of the renaming done by the DPP in the past few years. But since Ma won't be president until May 20, it's premature to move an article. Some mention with credible sources might be appropriate. HkCaGu (talk) 20:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines to DUS and MAN

Is Oasis beginning services to these places from HKG on July 3? Users have been adding it to the respective pages. I couldn't find anything on their website to back this up. Audude08 (talk) 02:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is not on the airline website and lacks a RS then delete it noting the need for a reliable source. I suspect it was on a blog someplace. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, without a reliable source I have removed the route again from the Manchester Airport, Dusseldorf Airport and Hong Kong International Airport pages. SempreVolando (talk) 07:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The reference used was Hong Kong International Airport's website (departures information) and not the airline website. Since Oasis's website does not have Manchester and Dusseldorf in their schedules. They will probably add it again. Audude08 (talk) 17:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
It's odd that it's mentioned on the airport website, though. NcSchu(Talk) 18:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it mentions the flights on the HKG airport website but Oasis's website nor Manchester Airport's website does not mention the said flights. Weird...huh? Audude08 (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Well it's not really odd - this probably is the date of the first planned service on this route, already loaded into the HKG timetable. But it doesn't count as a Reliable Source. The airline may well be still awaiting formal approval to operate the service. Once the airline announce the route by means of a press release or similar, then we have a reliable source to confirm commencement of the route. Manchester Airport will no doubt also issue a press release once the route is confirmed. SempreVolando (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Gate numbers

I know this has been talked about repeatedly, but the consensus is that gate numbers should not be listed for terminals and airlines because it's uncencyclopedic, subject to change, usually unreferenced, and travel guide-ish, right?

Any objection if I state that "Gate numbers should not normally be listed." in the structure guideline? Should there be any qualifiers, or leave it slightly vague because this is not binding policy anyway? I recently removed gates from LAX and was reverted on the logic that many other large airports have them, so some guidance would be helpful before re-reverting. ASHill (talk) 13:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Gate numbers are one of the things that have no way of being verified except by original research and personal experiences (and we know how WP likes those) and most of them definitely don't stay very consistent. NcSchu(Talk) 14:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
As I mentioned in the LAX article, gate number ranges may be OK, but we surely don't want to keep tracks of the As and Bs and how many bridges at each gate and whether the As and Bs at each airport mean different bridges or actually different parking spaces. May I suggest that if the gate count is mentioned, it must be the number of parking spots, not bridges or whatever the "lettering/numbering schemes" the airport employs? HkCaGu (talk) 16:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see what is wrong with having: Concourse A has 9 Gates: A1 - A9. Besides, most [small] airport pages list terminal maps right there on their websites so it is verifiable. Sox23 23:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
We should not list gates by airline. However we can list the number of gates in each terminal. I don't think I object to listing the actual gate number. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Regardless, there might need to be guidelines in WP:AIRPORTS saying how much is too much. For me, "9 gates: A1-A9" is fine, but if the existence of 5A and 5B make 1-9 a ten-gate terminal, that will tempt editors to turn to listing individual gates. HkCaGu (talk) 07:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
How do you feel about this terminal? As to 5A and 5B, I guess the answer would lie in why they are numbered that way. If this was done to add an additional gate in a terminal without having to renumber other gates, then why not show this? If it is simply 2 bridges for one aircraft, then it does not get counted. Counting 'parking spaces' has some appeal, but is full of problems. What happens when gate 73 is a bus that takes you out to several aircraft? Is that one gate or is it counted as 4 parking spaces? What about the case where one or two gates in the terminal are used to access multiple regional aircraft? In the end, the simplest might be to just count gates in the terminal that service one or more aircraft. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not wild about it. I would prefer something along the lines of "Concourse A has 19 gates numbered with the prefix A" or, for LAX-like airports, "Terminal 2 has 11 gates with gate numbers between 20 and 29" or "Terminal 2 has 11 gates with all gate numbers beginning with '2'." (See my comment below for my first preference, though.)
Unless there's a source, speculation that 5A and 5B are numbered that way because a gate was added is original research anyway. If there is a source, why not just say "A gate was added in 1843."? ASHill (talk) 14:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
It's fine for me to see "Concourse A has 10 gates: A1 - A9". It just wouldn't last because people will add excessive details. If gate mentions are OK, then the guidelines should say "gate count OK, gate range OK, individual gates not OK". (How many airports, terminals and concourse have a "perfect" numbering scheme anyway?) HkCaGu (talk) 08:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I concur. Gate number ranges would be OK with me, but I don't really see how it's encyclopedic and not travel guideish to say what the airport calls them, particularly given the pragmatic concern that it will quickly get ridiculous. I would prefer if the guideline were simply to say "State the number of gates or aircraft parking spaces in the concourse or terminal; do not state the numbers of individual gates." ASHill (talk) 14:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
So are we saying that it is OK to list the number of gates and the lowest and highest gate numbers but it is not OK to list individual gate numbers. If so, that to me is a reasonable solution. So we would say a terminal has 5 gates (A1-A9) and not 5 gates (A1-A3, A7 and A9). Vegaswikian (talk) 21:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How does that make sense. Readers who just look at wikipedia will not know that 5 gates (A1-A9) actually means (A1-A3, A7 and A9). They'll think it is just a mistake and think wikipedia is that much more unreliable. I don't see what is wrong in saying: Concourse A has 5 gates: A1-A3, A7, A9. Number 1: That is actually correct, and Number 2: This is a stupid argument. Come on...we're talking about whether or not gate numbers should be added in airport articles. We're making too big a deal out of nothing. As I said before, many airport websites list terminal maps that include gates listed on them so its not like the gates are unverified/unsourced. I'm sure one can look on an airport's website and see that Concourse A has 5 gates and they're numbered A1-A3, A7, A9 and not A1-A9. Sox23 00:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it shouldn't be there without a source, so there should be a footnote right next to any gate numbers, so readers can easily check that. I agree that this isn't worth much time arguing over, but I do think that a long list of gate numbers looks ugly and like a parody of Wikipedia. I personally would never add gate numbers (either individually or as a range), but I don't care enough to revert or delete a range; I do care enough to revert a long, ugly list, provided that others agree that they're not worth including; that's the reason I brought it up here. I'm fully comfortable with any of the suggestions by Vegaswikian, HkCaGu, or NcSchu above. ASHill (talk) 01:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed how JFK does some of this. Take a look at Kennedy Airport#Terminal 2 and Kennedy Airport#Terminal 3 where they list gates and pads both. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the US Helicopter flights at JFK and EWR have the specific gate number listed beside it. Also, on O'Hare International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport articles users have been adding the gates the specific airline use at those airports (especially in the International Concourse/terminal sections), I have removed them as they are unsourced and unencyclopedic. I think the airlines use different gates in those terminals and they seem to constantly change. Audude08 (talk) 22:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Terminal names

When one airline is the only airline using gates in a terminal, should that name appear in the terminal heading? I think the names should be the names as used by the airport. Adding the airline starts making the entry more of a travel guide. In addition, this can be very misleading when an airline has exclusive use of one terminal and operates from several other terminals. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example, do you mean something like British Airways Terminal 5 instead of Terminal 5 for example. In this example it would be wrong even though BA have almost exclusive use it doesnt change the name of the Terminal. MilborneOne (talk) 17:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
In many US Airport articles, there is something like: ===Concourse C - Southwest Airlines===. See McCarran International Airport/"Concourse A" and "Concourse C" for an example. I agree with what Vegaswikian is pointing out. People may think that Southwest Airlines has exclusive rights to Concourse C at McCarran, and that just isn't true. I think we should take it off the heading and leave it as: ===Concourse C=== Sox23 17:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
OK understood, agree with Vegaswikian and Sox should not be in heading if not part of the official name. MilborneOne (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't see the point it in it especially if it's not an official designation of the terminal. It's pretty obvious that a certain terminal is only one airline just by looking at the airlines that serve it! NcSchu(Talk) 18:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
On the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport article, Concourses A and B both have Delta Air Lines on the side of it. Since ya'll agree not to put the specific airline for the concourse. I going to go ahead and remove it. Audude08 (talk) 21:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Just removed a few more from Washington Dulles International Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport articles. I remove more if I find any. Audude08 (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding new airports

I created pages for a few of the airports in the list of requests, only to find that it was a complete waste of time, because there was already an article under a different name for the airport. Could we put a note to people adding airports to check that there isn't already a page for the airport under a different name - to save editors like me the time and effort of creating unnecessary pages. Callumm (talk) 12:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. I have suggested searching on the IATA/ICAO/FAA codes prior to creating an article. BTW, thanks for the quick work on the list. -Canglesea (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much! Best regards, Callumm (talk) 20:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


Wikilinking Start/End Dates

I see that people are now starting to wikilinking dates on every airport article here per the project guidelines and WP:MoS (In the past, we don't wikilink them). I think that there are a TON of articles that have not had start/end dates wikilinked. I wondering if we should wikilink every date for every airport article. Thanks! Audude08 (talk) 22:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Although I agree with the guideline to link the dates I am not sure it is worth going back and adding them to every article when by their nature they will self-expire possibly within a few months. I would say link them if you are adding new data or changing the relevant section for other reasons, but the time and effort to go back may be better used. MilborneOne (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Denpasar or Denpasar-Bali or Denpasar/Bali or just Bali

Dear WPedians, Which one is supposed to be when listing under Destination list:

Denpasar/Denpasar-Bali/(Denpasar/Bali)/Bali? I just want to avoid any more confusion --Zack2007 (talk) 07:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I would use Denpasar/Bali I think that the airport serves both the cities of Denpasar and Bali. I don't know...that's how I would list it. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 22:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Bali is not a city, it's an island. Unfortunately the official airport name ("Ngurah Rai") has neither Denpasar nor Bali in the name... Jpatokal (talk) 04:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Airportpicreq

Any chance you guys can merge the features of Template:Airportpicreq into Template:WPAVIATION so that Template:Airportpicreq may be delted? Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 15:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Bermuda

I just noticed that in all the destination lists, Bermuda International Airport is referred to as simply 'Bermuda'. Now it seems strange for this destination to be referred to by just the country, and since I believe we decided, in a similar case, to call Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport 'Port Louis' instead of 'Mauritius', I'm wondering why we don't do the same with Bermuda. Now I don't particularly care either way; I just happened to notice it. NcSchu(Talk) 16:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Hamilton sounds like a fair entry in this case. Do we have a standard for similar cases like these, btw?--Huaiwei (talk) 16:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The airport is generally shown as just "Bermuda" on airport destination screens and when looking up destinations on airline Web sites. Unless we're going to say "Bermuda-Hamilton" (which would seem unnecessary, it's not like there's more than one airport there) I believe we should stick with the common name. It's not generally known as "Hamilton" and readers looking for "Bermuda" will be confused. FCYTravis (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
As an addendum, when looking the airport up on various airline Web sites, AA.com refers to it as "Bermuda/Hamilton." BritishAirways.com and USAirways.com both refer to it as "Bermuda, Bermuda," and for both of those sites, typing in "Hamilton" will not in any way bring up Bermuda's airport. FCYTravis (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
"Error - British Airways does not currently fly to Hamilton. We are able to offer an alternative destination, please see the pull down menu below." The alternative destination offered is... Toronto. FCYTravis (talk) 17:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The best way to decide is to pretend you're asking people: Do they know where Hamilton is? Do they know where Bermuda is? Port Louis? Mauritius? It should be pretty simple. An additional point is that Port Louis and Hamilton are simply small capital cities of an island or an island group. Unlike the less-than-defined "market" boundary of EWR (and of course the multiple-airport metropolis), it's pretty clear they serve the whole island, on which most people don't live in Hamilton or Port Louis. And finally, flights are universally marked/advertised as going to/from "Bermuda" or "Mauritius", or be it "Tahiti" or "Guam". Capital city names of stand-alone, one-airport islands are simply meaningless to travelers while they are outside. HkCaGu (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

IATA Airport Codes

The discussion at Talk:Double Eagle II Airport raises a question: Is there an authoritative online source for IATA airport codes? Depending where I look, I get different answers for code AEG: Airport Guide vs www.abakan.de -Canglesea (talk) 17:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The authoritive source is the IATA Airline Coding Directory (ACD) but unfortunately for most people it is not on the web mainly because they want users to pay for it and the related update service. Most of the amateur webpages are based on this document which is available inside the airline and airport business. MilborneOne (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguate Jakarta??

I have posted a discussion on the Singapore Changi Airport talk page after seeing that Jakarta has been disambiguated from just Jakarta to Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta. I see just neutral repsonses. So, I am asking again, does Jakarta really need to be disambiguated since Soekarno-Hatta Int'l and Halim Airports are the only two airport in operation? Audude08 (talk) 23:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport does not offer commercial flights then there is no need for disambiguation. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
There is one (1) scheduled cargo flight from Changi to Halim. All passenger (and other cargo) services, however, operate to Soekarno-Hatta. Jpatokal (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
So is that why Singapore Changi Airport have Jakarta disambiguated? Audude08 (talk) 05:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
That seems to be User:Huaiwei's logic, yes. I think it's unnecessary, as "Jakarta" can be assumed to mean CGK unless otherwise noted. Jpatokal (talk) 10:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, cause I seem to disam Jakarta on other airport articles but it just gotten reverted. Isn't using his logic inappropriate here. Audude08 (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Kindly see Talk:Singapore_Changi_Airport#Disam_Jakarta.3F.3F for full details of the dispute, instead of relying on the quality of comments made here especially by Jpatokal. I disambiguated the two Jakarta airports as "Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta" and "Jakarta-Halim Perdanakusuma" as there is a commercial scheduled route being operated to each airport from Singapore Changi Airport. Jpatokal argues quite inexplicably that disambiguation is not neccesary since it isnt two passenger routes being involved here, but one passenger and one freight. Right. So since he has refused to explain this logic despite repeated requests to do so, I recon he either expects viewers to somehow guess that freight routes will naturally go to Halim Perdanakusuma instead of Soekarno-Hatta. Or perhaps he believes travelling cargo won't be reading wikipedia anyway (I can't dispute that thou! ;)), hence there is no possibility of confusion. He lately insists that disambiguation should be in the form of "Jakarta" and "Jakarta-Halim Perdanakusuma" without really explaining why either, and despite this being at odds with formats used in most articles (many of which would list "Taipei-Taiwan Taoyuan" or "Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi" despite no routes operated to smaller airports). Audude08 therefore interprets my action as requiring all instances of "Jakarta" being replaced with "Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta", something I have never proposed (but will not entirely object if blind consistency is the in-thing here). In situations like this, I would think basic common sense would make it clear that such disambiguation is only neccesary when flights are operated to two different airports in the same city, where the smaller city has extremely limited traffic.--Huaiwei (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Once more (this is an exact copy of what I already posted):
There are two separate points here, my friend. One: If one airport is far larger than the competition, disambiguating the name of the larger airport is unnecessary. (Cf. SIN vs XSP, KUL vs SZB, MEL vs the rest and, yes, CGK vs HLM.) Two: Passenger and cargo flights should be separated into their own tables, which further reduces the need to disambiguate cargo-only airports like HLM and YMX. Jpatokal (talk) 05:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
One, your criteria for disambiguation is pretty original as far as my observations shows. Just how "large" is an airport vis-a-via a smaller one before you disambiguate them? Is there a quantifiable criteria, and if so, where is this published? There is a fairly larger operation from Avalon compared to say Seletar, so why are both not disambiguated, when there are other "smaller" secondary airports which were disambiguated (Taipei, Bangkok, etc)? Two, whether it is one table, two tables, or the names of the two airports appearing at the top or bottom of the article is of absolutely no consequence in the need to disambiguate them. Accuracy in identifying two different airports does not increase due to screen distance. Duh.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing original about it, it's the way Wikipedia already operates. For example, in the Changi airport article you'll already find eg. "Kuala Lumpur", "Melbourne", "Beijing", "Los Angeles", and the reader is expected to know that these refer to KUL, MEL, PEK and LAX respectively, even though all of these cities have smaller secondary airports with scheduled passenger services. What criteria are you using for not disambiguating them? Jpatokal (talk) 04:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Nonsense. The current situation has never been consistent, as well illustrated above. Non of these entities has remained undisambiguated based on my criteria, and I have never seen myself to be in a position to establish them. On the other hand, we have you telling us some obscure "criteria" exists. Why do you hesitate now to answer this question, instead of trying to deflect it, if that criteria exists in plain simple English anywhere in wikipedia?--Huaiwei (talk) 13:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
"Common sense" boils down to "disambiguate if there is ambiguity" (see WP:DAB), but no, there are no quantifiable criteria specifically for airports at the moment, and I'd be happy to try to establish some. Two starting points: Jpatokal (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Disambiguate airports for int'l flights if destination has more than one int'l airport.
  • Disambiguate airports for domestic passenger flights if destination has more than one airport with scheduled passenger services.
Commmon sense is no longer "common" nor "sensible", if it is not a community-established observation, or when it makes little logical sense. Both of these are absent in your proposal above. Could you explain why only international flights in the former, and only passenger flights/service in the later? Whatever happened to your earlier insistence that there exists a system of disambiguation based on the sizes of airports?--Huaiwei (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The two points are quantifications of my previous statement of "far larger than the competition". If a city has multiple airports, and only one is designated to handle international flights, then that one is practically always "far larger than the competition". Likewise, if a city has multiple airports and only one has scheduled passenger service, than that one is certainly "far larger than the competition".
I would have no objection to "No need to disambiguate airports for cargo flights if destination only has one airport with scheduled cargo service" as an additional rule, if that's what you meant, but it's often difficult to determine if a cargo flight is "scheduled" or not. Given that cargo flights often also serve unusual or dedicated fields, it might be just easier to always disambiguate cargo flight destinations. Jpatokal (talk) 18:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
In other words, you are suggesting that entries such as Taipei, Bangkok, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, etc etc etc, shall all no longer carry disambiguation tags in all cases fitting your criteria, which is completely at odds with the existing situation in the vast majority of airport articles? Just how many airports are there with routes to multiple airports in another city? Not many. Good luck to those reading articles on airports with international flights only to Gatwick, but not Heathrow!--Huaiwei (talk) 18:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
No, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. To clarify, the source airport and its flights are irrelevant, it's only the destination that matters. London, Paris, New York and Tokyo all have multiple airports with international scheduled services, so flights from other airports to them would continue to be disambiguated, just as they are now. Taipei and Bangkok have only one airport at the moment that serves international flights, but the situation of both Don Muang and Songshan is so fluid that it's probably better to disamb them as well. Jpatokal (talk) 10:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm just going to forget about it since it would be no case arguing about it. Audude08 (talk) 21:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I just disambiguated the 2 Jakarta Airports on article that have Jakarta listed as a destinations just to make everyone happy. Audude08 (talk) 21:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree disambiguating Jakarta. pikdig (talk) 03:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
So do I. Audude08, nobody except you is suggesting disambiguating them everywhere, so please undo your changes. Jpatokal (talk) 05:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Only Singapore Changi Airport will leave Jakarta disambiguated. Everyone just keep putting these in my head and getting me all confused. Audude08 (talk) 05:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Dude, I work for Singapore Airlines and I don't wish to be seen as biased here but what Huaiwei is trying to say is true. In my capacity as an employee of SIA, I can't uploaded official documents to support his statement (that would put my rice bowl on the line) but I can tell you this, he is right. --Dave1185 (talk) 02:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I fully understand the issue here, because it seems like a relatively small technicality. I just went and looked at the destination list, and since the freight airline is integrated into the section and, more importantly, into the nice table they have there, I think it's proper to disambiguate it so as not to make it seem like the cargo airline is flying to the same airport as the passenger airlines are. Not everyone knows that only one airport in Jakarta serves passengers (I sure didn't until now). NcSchu(Talk) 16:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe everybody in this discussion is in favor of listing the solitary flight from SIN to HLM as "Jakarta-Halim". The issue is whether this should cause all other Jakarta flights to be "Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta", and if so, should that apply to SIN alone or the entire encyclopedia. Jpatokal (talk) 10:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding PilotOutlook Airport API to {{us-airport}} template

I have 27K US airports (combined IATA+ICAO) and another 15K international airports in my database, which can be accessed using Airport API - http://www.pilotoutlook.com/api/introduction. e.g. http://www.pilotoutlook.com/xml/AirportLookup?IATA_CODE=KBFI&AccessKeyId=28b878cacfb84cff92f7c56b22eceddab919534d

Would it be possible to add API link to {{us-airport}} template?

Note - I haven't lit up international airports yet on the site but they will be there soon. I am sourcing data through many international organizations. Disclaimer - I own PilotOutlook but I am keeping it as a free service.

Let me know if you have questions. Rajatgarg79 (talk) 01:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

As I have noted on your talk page the website does not add any extra value to wikipedia (none of the information is unique or notable) and could be considered spam if you add it to any of the aviation articles. It could also be considered a Conflict of Interest if you added the links yourself. MilborneOne (talk) 12:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Direct vs. Nonstop

Okay, I see why I'm wrong, and why my edits were reverted by HkCaGu, but I suggest that the difference between direct and nonstop should be noted in the Destinations category of airport articles, and that direct flights, not just nonstop, are listed.--Char645 (talk) 03:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure quite a few are not aware that "direct" should be listed and assume it's "nonstop only" (as expressed by quite a few editors especially in North America (see talk on PDX/SEA articles). I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to italicize direct destinations so it might help the awareness. HkCaGu (talk) 14:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. We'll just need to verify all these flights and whether they are direct or nonstop. However, in the meantime, how would it be to have something listed at the top of the Destinations sections like this:
All flights listed are either non-stop or direct.
How does that look? --Char645 (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
If we do this, it should become a template so that it can be added easily and if changed, we only need to make a single change. If we do this, is there anything else we need to say like dates within the next 12 months don't include the year? What begin, end and seasonal mean? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
It might become a bit crowded if we include all of that, but I think mentioning the lack of a year for certain dates might be a good idea. NcSchu(Talk) 00:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking something like:
Destinations only show non-stop and direct flights. Dates within the next 12 months may not include the year.
Feel free to modify and see if there is consensus to do this. This implies that direct flights are in italics but it may be too obtuse to work. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the primary point we need to get across is the distinction between direct and nonstop. Once that is up, you'll stop getting clueless idiots like me removing the direct flights. :P I would think most people would know what a seasonal flight is and that omitted years from dates imply this year, but you can do it however you want it to.--Char645 (talk) 01:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Destinations only show non-stop and direct (no plane change but with stops) flights. Dates within the next 12 months may not include the year.
Better? If not, try a version that covers what you want. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
What about changing the section title to "Terminals and destinations (nonstop and direct)"? HkCaGu (talk) 07:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
And this (nonstop and direct) wiould only be necessary in airports with italicized destinations. HkCaGu (talk) 07:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I still think it's best to give a little more detail. That doesn't necessarily mean that we illustrate the differences, but just say that there is a difference between the two. For example:
= Destinations =

(Destinations listed here include non-stop and direct flights. Please understand the difference.)
= Concourse A =

etc.
What do you think? Char645 (talk) 20:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Queenstown International Airport

There is a request to rename the subject airport to Queenstown Airport (New Zealand) based on the official name on the official web site. If there are any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace (or piece, whatever). -Canglesea (talk) 03:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The current article should be moved to Queenstown Airport with the current disambig page at that namespace to be moved to Queenstown Airport (disambiguation). As per WP:DISAMBIG, Queenstown Airport should be the New Zealand airport article, as that is what the majority of people would be expecting to reach when they search for Queenstown Airport and hit go in the search box. --Россавиа Диалог 06:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Agree: For the record, this article, disambig page, and links will be moved/renamed today as specified by Россавиа. Thanks -Canglesea (talk) 19:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a discussion about this at Incomplete and Contested Moves. -Canglesea (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Done! Queenstown International Airport has been moved to Queenstown Airport -Canglesea (talk) 02:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit war on Portland International Airport

There has been an ongoing edit war for the destinations served by Northwest Airlines. It has been like this

  • Northwest Airlines (Amsterdam [begins March 29], Detroit, Honolulu, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Singapore [ends May 30]', Pusan [begins May 31 in place of Singapore], Tokyo-Narita)

Please feel free to discuss this on the PDX Airport talk page so we don't get into another edit war. The page has been semi-protected. Audude08 (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Where do we stand on the issue of whether WP:Airport should be modified to recommend only including non-stop flights? I recommend that we do so, for 2 reasons. First, I believe that most readers believe that only non-stop destinations are listed. Secondly, it's practically impossible to know if a direct flight is scheduled on the same aircraft, and whether the passengers are required to deplane during the stop, unless you fly that route regularly or are an employee of the airline in question.WikiBrown (talk) 08:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Direct flights represent actual service between a city pair. The fact that readers don't know the difference between a direct flight and a non stop one is not a reason to eliminate the listing of direct flights. If anything, the direct flights can always be confirm with sources that meet WP:RS. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
You say that "Direct flights represent actual service between a city pair." How do they do so in a way that connecting flights, or direct flights under the same flight number using different aircraft don't?
The problem is that what constitutes a "direct flight" is murky. A flight should be considered one segment from takeoff to landing. From the passenger's perspective, it's not really relevant whether the flight continues on the same plane or under the same flight number; it's still two flights.
Also, as was pointed out before, under the current guidelines it will be necessary to add many Southwest Airlines destinations to US airport articles, as they have no hubs and have many "direct flights" with three or four segments.
It seems that the only way to resolve this issue sensibly is to modify the guideline to include non-stop flights only.WikiBrown (talk) 03:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It does not make sense to say the "Island Hopper" (GUM-TKK-PNI-KSA-KWA-MAJ-HNL) is 6 flights. It is one flight with five stops. But yes, I think we should rewrite the rules of inclusion/exclusion. Having read the above points, I can provide a first draft here--feel free to point out more and comment:

  • If it goes through a hub, it's not direct.
  • If it involves a change of aircraft type, it's not direct.
  • If the plane doesn't follow the flight number 6 out of 7 times, it's not direct. (If it's unverifiable through gate numbers, leave it alone, give it the benefit of a doubt.)
  • If it is as meaningless as Southwest's schedule (e.g. many SEA-OAK-LAX options a day, one is "direct", others aren't), it's not direct.
  • But if most flights of the day have the same stop (e.g. QX SEA-PUW-LWS), then SEA-LWS is direct. This option includes all flights flying B-C far from base/hub A, e.g. QF SYD-LAX-JFK. Listing LAX-JFK as valid destination of each other but not listing SYD-JFK as destination of each other looks really stupid.

More? HkCaGu (talk) 06:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Especially because LAX-JFK isn't actually a valid destination for that flight; that would be illegal cabotage. FCYTravis (talk) 06:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to illustrate how little sense it makes to simply get rid of all nonstops. If there's a ban like that you'd have QF presence listed in JFK with no destinations! HkCaGu (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

HkCaGu, I am quite curious as to how you could come up with the "If it involves a change of aircraft type, it's not direct" criterion. Is this linked to any established definition? So a current Qantas flight to the UK with a plane change in Singapore is considered a direct flight since it all involves a B747 currently, but should Qantas decide to change plane type in either sector, it suddenly ceases to become one and must be dropped from the list? Could you explain the logic behind this?--Huaiwei (talk) 02:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

"Plane change" is already in the current definition in this Project. It says both "the flight number and the aircraft" are needed to be listed here (and let the industry defines "direct"). The Project rule already explained itself that some so-called direct flights are not genuinely direct and results in destination listings being unmaintainable and less than truthful. For "direct" flights with no aircraft type changes, I have repeatedly removed NW's HKG-NRT-LAX because I know they change planes more often than not (by comparing NRT gate numbers). For other segment pairs, I simply don't have time to research whether there is a B744 to B744 plane change and therefore have taken a neutral stand and let people do it either way (while arguing here that we should simply get rid of them). However, aircraft-type change means 100% chance of plane change, and that's how the future SIN-NRT-MSP is on the schedule. HkCaGu (talk) 03:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
There is a startling huge difference between text in a WikiProject and what actually goes into a wikipedia article like Direct flight, which clearly includes flights with a change in aircraft, so kindly do not confuse between the two. The definition in the wikipedia article is supported by the source cited at [6], and which also includes flights involving a change of aircraft type as falling under the "direct flight" definition. As long as you fail to provide an equally credible source which says otherwise, you have infringed on WP:OR by asserting your own definitions of an industrial term (which is certainly not defined by this WikiProject as per your sugguestions here[7]). The "so-called direct flights" refer to a perculiar "problem" involving domestic connections in the U.S. This situation is far less prevalant, and in fact almost non-existant in other markets. Any flight involving 100% aircraft change can certainly be a direct flight if the flight number remains the same. Period. Provide the sources to argue otherwise.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Please stop bullying [8] [9] your way around things. I did not redefine the industry definition or the "Direct Flight" article. I simply restated the text of the WikiProject guideline. It says include nonstops and directs except for such and such exceptions. An aircraft change is an exception. An aircraft type change guarantees aircraft change. Stop the incivility! HkCaGu (talk) 04:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
If you cannot back up what you say, do not attempt to retract them now, or accuse the other party of bullying tactics. Kindly adhere strictly to basic Wikipedia guidelines of WP:V and WP:OR, which you persist to refuse to, even daring to claim that "wp:airport had always defied market terminology" as per this citation[10]. Nonsense! As per your latest insistance on deleting a valid entry in [11], you claim the existance of a schedule which publishes flights for 2 June 2008 and beyond. Nonsense! NWA's current downloadable timetables at [12] publish only flights up to Apr 7, 2008. You claim that direct flights from Singapore to Minneapolis/St. Paul after 2 June 2008 do not exist. Nonsense! Kindly do a simple schedule search, which shows a flight number change of NW5/6 on the Singapore-Tokyo sector followed by NW19/20 on the Tokyo-Minneapolis sector currently. A search for post-June 2008 flights shows NW19/20 on both sectors on the Singapore-Tokyo-Minneapolis route, hence it is a direct flight by definition after 2 June 2008. Conversely, Singapore-Tokyo-Portland flights where switched from a direct NW5/6 flight currently to one involving NW5/6 and NW19/20, hence it is no longer a direct flight by definition after 2 June 2008. Unless you can cite more convincing evidence, I would demand that you revert your own edit now before I take action against your persistant attempts to edit without due deligience to adhere to basic wikipedia policies. I will be monitoring that said article with added attention henceforth.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
If you will simply scroll up this very talk page, you'll see what planes they're planning to use after the June changes, courtesy of User:PikDig's research. It is purely laughable that there is no schedule beyond April 7, as you searched the flights yourself already beyond June. Airline schedules are generally published almost a year in advance since they take reservations that far in advance. (And if you're looking at the PDF one--paper schedules for US airlines are never beyond a month or so.) Then obviously they have planned what planes they are going to use in order to know how many seats they can sell. And SIN-NRT-MSP will be different plane TYPES. Inclusion criteria here at WP:AIRPORT has never completely surrendered to industry definitions with respect to the meaning of direct, and I stand by my statement. HkCaGu (talk) 05:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
In case you need a reminder of your own actions, HkCaGu, you stated "Undid revision 199761272 by Huaiwei, go download it at www.nwa.com or see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports"[13] when I asked you to cite your sources[14] (which absolutely does not suggest that I do not have any, be it via PDF download or otherwise for whichever period. What a lame attempt in embarrassing someone else in retaliation). Need I say more? Throughout the conversation above, I repeatedly blasted the inaccurate and unsourced definition of a direct flight, which you have not been able to defend in any way, thus an outright infringement of WP:OR. Sources clearly stated that a change in plane type may also be defined as a direct flight as far as the industry is concerned. And may I seek your confirmation that you wish to stand by your statement that "wp:airport had always defied market terminology"?--Huaiwei (talk) 05:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
You continue to depart from the subject. We at WP:AIRPORT created the exceptions to "direct" and have not let the industry define what gets listed here. The industry has defined what "direct" is and this is reflected in the "direct" article. Numerous editors on airlines and airports can look up flight schedules faster than me and numerous edits to numerous airports and airlines are made everyday without "citing sources"--the type you, the apparent owner of the Singapore Changi Airport article, demand. We do not define "direct" here. We decided, but are also discussing what kind of "direct" to include. HkCaGu (talk) 06:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I wonder to whom the charge is directed at. In other words:
  • You at WP:AIRPORT created an exception to violate WP:V and WP:OR, and avoided admitting that, instead preferring to use your interpretation of existing text at WP:Airport as an excuse, am I not correct?
  • You have continously failed to provide veifiable sources to support any of your edits, and refused to acknowledge this fact, am I not correct?
  • You have avoided commenting on the point that the said text in the existing WP is actually targeted in particular at flights flying between two American airports and onwards to a third destination, which is different from the case of an American city to a Japanese city to a Singaporean city, and which does not change that often to the point of the community having problems keeping track of it, am I not correct?
  • You attempted to mislead me by suggesting that I should download the purported schedules by "download it at www.nwa.com"[15] when no such schedule exists for download since only an electronic search exists in that site currently, and then attempted to cover that up by digressing about my purported inability to do basic schedule research (and in the meantime also failed to show the purported "correct" version of your sources of schedules in here too despite your commment), am I not correct?
  • You insisted not once[16], but twice[17], that terms as used by the aviation industry is defined by wp:airport over and above verifiable third-party sources as required by WP:V despite my comments that this is a blatant violation of WP:OR[18], but skirted the issue when I asked you for an outright declaration on your willingness to stand by your statement, am I not correct?
  • And last but not least, that you have no intention to directly address all the concerns above, preferring instead to hope for some kind of "backup" from other members of this WP (perhaps knowing full well that I have always been labelled as a rebel of sorts around this WP and usually discriminated against anyway), and in the meantime allerging me as some kind of an "article owner" in a bid to score points for your own agendas and to earn some sympathy points for yourself to enforce your views when you find yourself unable to respond in a logical, coherent, accountable and mature manner, am I not correct?--Huaiwei (talk) 06:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I am now offically confused. Why is Portland listed as a destination on the Singapore Airport page as a direct flight for NWA but Singapore is not listed on the Portland Airport page? Can someone give me an explanation? Audude08 (talk) 21:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps because someone deleted Singapore from the Portland page? Now a check on the official Changi flight planner[19] will show the Singapore-Tokyo-Portland flight appearing. Singapore-Tokyo-Minneapolis does not show now, however, as it is currently not a direct flight, the former of which is. The current format has resulted in just one known inconsistency between the destination list in the Changi Airport article and that in the official airport timetable. Hardly a mind-bogging problem as suggested by HkCaGu such that such flights must be excluded.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Singapore is now readded to the Portland page with [ends May 30] at the end since it will be direct until that date. Audude08 (talk) 22:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The edit war continues between 2 IPs whether or not Singapore should be listed as a destination for Portland. Portland has now been removed as a destination for Singapore. Portland International Airport has been protected again. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 20:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Delta, NWA merger

Now that the merger is official, and the airline will be called Delta, does anyone know when exactly we should combine destinations? The official news conference is at 10:30AM EST Tuesday so perhaps a date will be announced then, but the press release doesn't seem to say anything about when the flight numbers will combine (which is when I'm guessing we should combine them). NcSchu(Talk) 00:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Hold the presses. It's not official until it is official. This PROPOSED merger requires government approval and from the news reports today, that is not guaranteed. It makes sense to locate the merger proposal in one article and point to that in other articles. Also there are two mergers, the holding companies and the airlines. It is likely that if the merge gains approval, the holding companies will be merged well before the airlines. Look at the history of HP and US. I think the best advice is to tread carefully and slowly. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, ha, woops. I definitely did not realize that it hadn't gotten/needed to get government approval. NcSchu(Talk) 03:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's going to be awhile. HP/US didn't even start the mass codeshare until a couple months after the merger was announced, and the unified branding (US Airways operated by America West Airlines) was awhile after that. FCYTravis (talk) 09:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Everything you wanted to know at Delta Air Lines-Northwest Airlines merger including complete copies of the press releases and repeating obvious statements. I removed the link from the Delta article as it added no value but I suspect it will be back. MilborneOne (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Former Airlines and Destinations

I know this was discussed over a year ago an I understand that adding former airlines and destinations were not really notable and were discouraged. An IP user has been adding them to a number of airport articles. On Sheremetyevo International Airport both User:WhisperToMe and I have removed the list only to be reverted. Before it is removed again and his/her former airlines and designation added to other articles are removed I just wanted to check that their is still consensus as nothing was added to the project page guide when it was last discussed. MilborneOne (talk) 16:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes the consensus reached previously was that the project guidelines should not be changed as lists of former airlines / destinations were not notable, usually incomplete and nearly impossible to verify. SempreVolando (talk) 16:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
In Singapore Changi Airport, former airlines and destinations are not only listed, but are mixed into the same table as current airlines. I've started a straw poll on this, you may wish to chip in. Jpatokal (talk) 02:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Talk:Singapore_Changi_Airport#Destination_box includes detailed discussions on why the current single-table format was adopted. It is unfortunate that users like Jpatokal has failed to particulate in that discussion, prefering to start a "straw poll" on an element he disagrees with only after an amicable solution has been reached with compromise from both participating sides.--Huaiwei (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I believe I have expressed concern over these assumptions before, but there has been no conclusive response. Former airlines are not automatically less notable. Is Air New Zealands' 40-year presence in Singapore any less notable than all airlines still operating there just because it terminated its Singaporean presence in 2006? Indeed, suspentions and terminations themselves can be notable. To say that information cannot be added by claiming they are "nearly impossible to verify" is also defeatist and counter-productive. Publications by airports and airlines is an obvious source of such information, even if some airlines may try to avoid direct mention on such cutbacks. Secondary sources like media articles add to possible verifiable sources. We do we declare defeat before even trying?--Huaiwei (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I oppose the most common instances of when people simply create a section, and just list airlines that used to serve the airport. It really doesn't provide anything of value no matter which way you look at it. Now I think we can all agree that if real thought were put into these sections it could be interesting. NcSchu(Talk) 05:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, although I would say that if such lists are supported by verifiable sources, then there is value to add them, not just on whether "real thought" has been put in. Just to give an example of how such information can be of value: I was trying to compare the state of operations when Changi opened in 1981 compared to the present day, and while I know the number of airlines operating at Changi when it opened, I had great difficulty actually identifying them. It was only when I did the data mining in various sourced to look for all airline histories in Changi that I was able to uncover almost all of them. It is my hope that others need not go through the same trouble, hence the detailed table of all airlines which has ever flown there, most with dates to allow comparisons at any point in time. This is my customer-service-first mantra which has fueled much of my contributions to this site.--Huaiwei (talk) 10:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
There are many issues with including terminated routes. If they are listed, they really need to be sourced. Start and stop dates should be included. Exactly how do we deal with resumed service? Is it noted in the discontinued list? These need to be in their own list. Is the length of time that service is not available a determining factor? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Have you observed how the Changi example deals with issues of resumed flights? Issues you attempt to forsee, while valuable, has already been solved. There is nothing which cannot have a solution to, as long as people would consider efforts to solve them. To avoid something because just because there is reluctance to find solutions to expected problems is precisely the "self-defeatist" attitude I mentioned earlier.--Huaiwei (talk) 10:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Do we list at every airport, every single route run by the hundreds of airlines which have gone bankrupt and shut down, or have merged? List every single point ever served by Eastern? TWA? Pan-Am? Pan-Am II? Pan-Am III? Allegheny? CCAir? Vanguard? ValuJet? Northeast? Henson Aviation? Wien Air Alaska? Braniff? Western? Midway I? Midway II? Frontier I? Western Pacific? Wings West? Reno Air? AirCal? PSA? Hughes AirWest? Ozark? Great Plains? Great Scott, I'm probably only 1/10th of the way through the list. This would easily double or triple the length of most airport articles. What about former hubs, like Reno Air at Reno? Do we track down every single former QQ destination and fill it full of start/stop dates?
If you want to do it on Changi, fine (I'm not going to fight that battle) but it's senseless and useless for us to do it at other airport articles. It will be a permanently-incomplete exercise in futility that has the added disadvantage of not helping our readers, particularly the way it's done at Changi which confusingly intermixes routes currently operated with routes that haven't operated in years by airlines that shut down 15 years ago.
If someone wants to do this in separate articles for each airline, I would be fine with that. Former destinations of Reno Air, for example. FCYTravis (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Please migrate all ceased traffic information off the Changi airport page to a new subarticle linked from there and maybe other places. This will preserve transparency and agreed on content guidelines fro actual airport pages. In general, this information is impossible to document to Wikipedia standards for arbitrary airports, and should be omitted. --Mareklug talk 20:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Which would also say those separate articles would not pass muster at AfD. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I did say "in general". Perhaps particular cases constitute exceptions, and I am agnostic as to Chiangi's case, not having examined it at all. Nonetheless, yes, I am fending off this systematic expansion of airport content as problematic. --Mareklug talk 04:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Why has the destinations for the airlines serving ATL been removed from the article. Did we even discuss removing them. If someone could, please restore them in the article. Thanks! 74.183.173.237 (talk) 18:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out - was some unreverted vandalism. I've fixed it. FCYTravis (talk) 19:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Russavia's issue with SilkAir (and Dragonair)

In the latest episode of Диалог's (more commonly known as Russavia) "anti-advertisement" crusade against Singapore Airlines, he nows sees it as an issue with SilkAir flights appearing in airport destination lists under the Singapore Airlines heading, and has proceeded to mass remove all of them (eg: [20]), saying "Silkair flights are Silkair flights not Singapore Airlines flights". To prevent the likes of myself from accusing him of being anti-SIA, he then proceeds to do the same thing against Dragonair (eg: [21]). Now I understand the current setup in all airport airline destination lists is to list the parent airline above their subsidiaries, even if no flight is operated by the former. Is there any particular issue against SilkAir and Dragonair not to follow this convention?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you have seen guidelines stating the "parent airline" should be shown above any subsidiaries, WP:AIRPORTS guidelines state that (my emphasis):
For flights operated by one airline but marketed by another, so that the flight uses only the marketing airline's flight number, avoid using the term dba, an abbreviation of the American business term doing business as. The preferred notation is:
It therefore seems to me that it is correct to list SilkAir flights on their own (without a Singapore Airlines above) in the destination lists, as they only use SilkAir (MI) flight numbers. Similarly I find many editors list bmibaby below and inset from bmi in airport destination lists, but as these flights operate with WW flight numbers (and not BD) I think the guidelines imply that should not happen. Hope that makes sense, would be useful to hear other editors views on this though in case I have completely misinterpreted! Thanks. SempreVolando (talk) 18:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Glad to see that we open this discussion by throwing out WP:AGF. If we look at the SilkAir schedule, it shows MI934 to Chengdu and MI933 from Chengdu. That seems to say that they are operated by and for Silkair and not for another airline. If that is the case, then they are SilkAir flights as I understand the convention. They are not SIA flights in any manner. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
But we should list the subsidiaries of a parent airline under the parent airline, shouldn't we? pikdig (talk) 20:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
No we shouldn't, for the parent airline is irrelevant. Using Silkair for this example (which by the way, I only got to changing because I was updating Christmas Island Airport with the EL to their website and noticing that both Silkair and Malaysia Airlines destinations lists have Christmas Island listed, even though they are chartered flights); Silkair flights are operated under the Silkair AOC, using Silkair flight numbers, using Silkair call signs. The only instances where the format:
  • Airline1
    • Airline2 (Destination1, destination2, destination3, etc)
should be followed is when Airline2 is contracted by Airline1 to operate flights on behalf of Airline1. --Россавиа Диалог 20:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
No, we are not showing anything about the parents and children. We are simply showing what airline is marketing the service and who is actually flying the route. What company owns another is not a factor in the listing. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
We should list the Silkair and Dragonair flights under their parent company. Silkair's parent comapny is Singapore Airlines LImited and Dragonair's is Cathay Pacific. They also clearly state that they are subsidarries of the parent airlines. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 00:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Why? We have not been doing this before. In an airport article, the parent company is not encyclopedic information. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It is plain obvious that Russavia/Россавиа, Vegaswikian and SempreVolando needs a serious reality check here. Just look through practically all airport articles (especially beyond the American ones) and observe just how many people have completely misunderstood a "criteria" which seems to be understood only by Americans. Airport articles stretching from London Heathrow Airport to Kingsford Smith International Airport all show subsidiary airlines below their parent airline regardless of flight numbers or marketing. Why has it come to this, and not one person notice this until now? And why is it that Russavia takes particular issue with the setup involving SilkAir and Dragonair, yet completely misses the fact that the same thing is done for practically all other airlines in those airport pages he edited? Queer, isnt it?--Huaiwei (talk) 13:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

May I further advice that Russavia/Россавиа hold his aggresive mass-edit of articles until a quick conclusion is reached here, many of which occured even after this discussion was initiated. This is certainly not the first time he strongly believes his interpretation are devine, and that the words of this page are as sacrosanct as the words in a Bible, so much so that it empowers him to smash through the website in such a manner.--Huaiwei (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

He listed the flights again under their own brand....I thought those were subsidiaries of Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific. Then if not shouldn't Uni Air, Mandarin Airlines, Nok Air, and Continental Micronesia be listed under their own brand also? If we list the subsidaries (listed above) under their parent company then we have a serious issue going on here about listing/not listing subsidiaries under their parent company. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
It is strange to me that the only arguments put forward by Huaiwei and 74.183.173.237 are that because the WP:AIRPORTS policy quoted above is being applied (apparently) incorrectly in several airport articles, that the guidelines themselves are now null and void! A truly bizzare argument. Nonetheless it appears perfectly clear to me and other editors that the guidelines are indeed being applied incorrectly in these cases. The idea that subsidiary airlines should appear below their parent airlines in destination lists has no basis in the guidelines, which clearly state only that this layout should be used where ... the flight uses only the marketing airline's flight number.... Also worth noting that I stand impartially on the issue of Singapore Airlines / SilkAir / Dragonair / Cathay etc... it appears Huaiwei and potentially Russavia do not. It doesn't matter to me which way this ends up being applied, but the guidelines seem pretty clear to me. SempreVolando (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
First and foremost, it appears to me that you are making assumptions on my stand on this issue. May I state for the record that I am perfectly nuetral on this, and in fact, I did find it odd many many moons ago when I found people shifting entities below their parent companies, but decided not to pursue the matter because it has become clear that this format has been applied in just about every airport article there is. May I just point out to you, SempreVolando, that the extent of the "error" goes beyond just "several airport articles". Kindly check through and do some background research first before commenting. Pointing out this widespread "error" is by no means an attempt to declare the guidelines invalid. Pointing out that an aggresive user is "correcting" entries for just two airlines when the same "error" affects practically all other airlines with subsidiaries is by no means taking a stand on either one of the said options above. The lack of consistency (geez..isnt this a sacred quality around here?!), and the misinterpretation of current guidelines which can occur when applied to the world's airlines (even if it seems "pretty clear" to you), are the primary issues I am targeting here. Kindly address these issues squarely, and quit assuming that I am taking the same viewpoint as an anon user.--Huaiwei (talk) 22:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting indeed that you chose to open this discussion with a complete lack of good faith claiming Russavia's "anti-advertisement" crusade against Singapore Airlines", then expect other editors to consider that you hold a neutral point of view on the issue! Anyway I will assume good faith with you and apologise for suggesting you do not hold NPOV here. The two issues you seek to resolve are: Consistency - I agree consistency is vital; it is of course a Wikipedia ideal. There is a lack of consistency on this issue which appears to arise either from a misunderstaing, ignorance or lack of awareness of the current project guidelines. I agree this does need to be resolved. The second issue is Misinterpretation of current guidelines where you seem to suggest that many people don't understand the guidelines set out at WP:AIRPORTS. If that is the case then of course the guidelines need to be strengthened to ensure no misunderstanding, but I maintain in my opinion they appear perfectly clear at the moment and I suspect that the unofficial policy of parent / subsidiary airlines has probably arisen out of ignorance or lack of awareness than misunderstanding. So as far as I can see we need to either:
A - Agree the guidelines are already clear and sufficient and amend the offending articles.
B - Agree that a misunderstanding is commonly arising, and therefore provide revised project guidelines wording and then amend the offending articles.
C - Agree that the project guidelines are wrong and that the parent airline should always appear above any subsidiary carrier in the destination list. This will require a new discussion to be started, as the guidelines would need to be completely changed.
In any of these events the opinions of more editors is of course preferable, and I concur with your earlier point that articles should not be amended until these discussions have been concluded. Thanks. SempreVolando (talk) 23:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps I should assume good faith as well and assume that you are probably relatively new to (or smartly disengaged from) this project and do not know the editing history involving some characters in this WP. Since it is just a personal tiff, I shall not elaborate further on what has transpired, but I will stress it again any day should that personal tiff be translated into disruptive editing with mass-edits of this magnitude. My key message is an enquiry on consistency in editing patterns, which is clearly lacking here if individuals target specific entities exclusively, and fail to address this issue adequately even after it has been pointed out.
And the issue here is also not about current guidelines being "wrong", or any article "offending" guidelines here. A guideline is merely a guideline, and compliance is recommended, not compulsory. Well of coz I have met with numerous opposition in this particular WP (but strangely not in others. hmmm) over this "compulsory" issue, but there is simply no "right" or "wrong" when it comes to coming up with guidelines to include or exclude verifiable information, or in the way information is presented. This is an issue of asthetics and presentation, and it is completely subjective to personal preferences.--Huaiwei (talk) 02:47, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
This is the WP:AIRPORTS page and we're discussing WP:AIRPORTS guidelines here. Whether you choose to respect them or not is not material to the discussion.
My two cents: I agree with SempreVolando and Vegaswikian that listings should reflect who operates the flight, not opaque corporate ownership structures. I'm not positive that the flight number is the best way of determining this though: to me, it would be a little odd to list eg. Air Asia/Thai Air Asia or Jetstar/Jetstar Asia flights as entirely separate just because they happen to be coded AK/FD and JQ/3K, even though everything else (livery, website, planes, etc) is effectively identical. Jpatokal (talk) 06:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
No one is talking about my views on respecting those guidelines either, so just what are you talking about?
So if flight numbers is not a good determinant, could you identify a more concrete definition then? Are we now in the business of presenting facts in favour of airlines who use coordinated marketing, while ignoring those who do not, despite the fact that both may actually involve the same company? Heck, while DragonAir is wholely-owned by Cathay Pacific, and in essense is actually operated by the same airline management, Jetstar Asia is not even majority owned by Jetstar's parent Qantas. And the exact some thing happens when you compare SQ/MI with AK/FD. Logical?--Huaiwei (talk) 07:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more: the corporate structures are not logical, and they shouldn't be used to determine the layout of the article.
Let me present you with a simple case. Your friend asks you, "Hey Huaiwei, does Air Asia fly from Bangkok to Jakarta?" Will you respond "No, it does not", because there are no AK-coded flights on that segment? Or will you respond "Why yes, it does", because Air Asia flies the route under both the FD (Thai) and QZ (Indo) codes?
Now, the same friend asks you, "Hey Huaiwei, does Singapore Airlines fly to Manado?" Do you tell him "No", because SQ does not operate on the route... or do you tell him that "Yes", because despite the fact that the planes flying on the route have MI codes, MI planes, MI livery, MI booking engine and don't show up on SQ's site, it's close enough because, deep in the background, SQ controls MI? Jpatokal (talk) 12:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
So while the general view here is that corportate structures should be left out, you alone insists they should now be presented based on marketing? And I thought there are plenty of folks here who are anti-marketing? Well if you demand my answer for both questions, I would say "Yes, Indonesian AirAsia and Thai AirAsia flies that route" and "Yes, Singapore Airlines flies that route via its subsidiary SilkAir". As an aviation geek I better know how to answer such questions as accurately as possible, as opposed to the "yes" and "no" answers respectively which you are clearly attempting to extract from me. Well, sorry to dissapoint, but I think I clearly know my stuff far better than a pretentious wannabe who is only here because I am here. Since we are still on this topic, I would love to hear how you handle each of these situations:
  • Qantas/Jetstar/Jetstar Asia/Valuair
  • Air France/KLM
  • Air India/Indian/Air-India Express
  • Japan Airlines/JALways, etc
  • Lufthansa/Lufthansa CityLine/Lufthansa Cargo, etc
  • Oh and for that matter, perhaps Star Alliance?--Huaiwei (talk) 07:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we can identify three different categories here:

1. Airline with independent brand and marketing

  • Indian
  • KLM
  • Qantas
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Dragonair
  • Singapore Airlines
  • SilkAir

2. Subsidiary that shares parent's brand, but uses own flight number

  • Air India
    • Air India Express
  • Japan Airlines
    • JALways
  • Jetstar
    • Jetstar Asia

3. "Flights operated by one airline but marketed by another, so that the flight uses only the marketing airline's flight number" (current WP:AIRPORTS wording).

  • Air France
    • Air France operated by Régional [AF code]
  • Lufthansa
    • Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine [LH code]

Note that the Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, Air India and JAL entries above match current practice. There are, inevitably, going to be a few fuzzy cases: you could argue that Valuair belongs in category 1 or 2, but I'd probably pip it over into 1 for the moment. Jpatokal (talk) 08:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Right. So I recon you have every intention to access each and every case using your arbitrary criteria of "independent marketing" and overhaul all articles for us?--Huaiwei (talk) 11:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Jpatokal's categories seem perfectly logical to me, flights which are independently branded and marketed is hardly "arbitrary". This would require consensus from more project members as it would involve amending the project guidelines wording, but in terms of overhauling the articles (if necessary) once an agreement is reached I don't think that's a problem as we can all chip in and help out with that. SempreVolando (talk) 12:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
If "independent branding and marketing" is not arbitrary, can you volunteer to come up with a set of clear guidelines on just what is "independent marketing" and what is not so that it can be implimented site wide without bias and without requiring a debate in these pages over every single case? Perhaps, for starters, you could use the Singapore Airlines/SilkAir and Cathay Pacific/DragonAir situations as an example, since they sparked off this debate?--Huaiwei (talk) 13:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Here's a first shot at an objective three-point independence test. Two out of three is enough:
1. Do the airlines have dissimilar liveries? (Different logo, different color scheme.)
2. Do the airlines have separate booking engines? (Can't book flights for one on the other's site.)
3. Do the airlines fly on the same routes? (On at least some routes.)
CX/KA score three out of three, as do QF/JQ -- both pairs compete on some routes. SQ/MI score two out of three, as there are no route overlaps. And for yucks, I scored the rest: KL/AF get 3 pts, AI/IA and AI/IX get 2 pts, JL/JO and JQ/3K get 0 pts. Jpatokal (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the brave attempt, Jpatokal, but as with every other original/self-created criteria on wikipedia, and one unheard of in the industry or by other respectable source, I had to question its practical use. Just looking at the CX and SQ cases alone:
  • I was apparantly able to book flights from Hong Kong to Wuhan via the CX website, although I can bet CX dosent fly there. DragonAir does. What the hell?
I believe you will find the answer to your confusion under Code sharing. The CX website shows the flight as CX6706, not KA. Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I was able to book an flight with an SQ flight number but operated by SilkAir from Singapore to Brunei. What the hell?
I believe you will find the answer to your confusion under Wet lease. This is a "Singapore Airlines operated by Silkair" flight, the SQ site never mentions Silkair and it doesn't even show up on MI's own site. Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • SilkAir, up until the late 1990s, operated on several routes already served by SIA, including the infamous Jakarta route which was axed soon after the MI185 accident. So even if no dublicate flights are in operation now, the subsidiary is obviously capable of running a dublicate route. What the hell?
What the hell indeed. The flights are not in operation now, so it fails criterion 3. If the airline chooses to start flying competing flights, then they're changing their model. Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
So do both airlines suddenly qualify under your ingenious criteria, Jpatokal?--Huaiwei (talk) 18:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
My dear, they already qualify as independent under my ingenious criteria. Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Not being involved up to now I just thought I would read the comments and the guidelines and I have to say the guideline is not the clearest definition of what is needed and I can see why it would cause confusion. In my simple mind the destinations list should have only two types entries:

  • Foo Airlines (Destination is served by subject airline using its own flight number and aircraft)
  • Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways (Destination is served by another airline for the subject airline using the subject airlines flight number)

No subsidaries no parents just who is actually flying the service for whom. Perhaps we can just agree a simple guideline, update the guide and get on with improving the encyclopedia. MilborneOne (talk) 12:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Based on your recommendation, which I find far more valid and simple to impliment, it would be exactly as intended in the existing guidelines. The guidelines will only need minor editing to avoid confusion. But I recon it will probably not solve all problems either, because many viewers are going to look at a destination list and start shifting all subsidiary companies below their parent companies regardless of airline codes without bothering to look at the guidelines. At least that was how I sense the problem has proliferated in the first place.--Huaiwei (talk) 13:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm so glad to hear that you agree with me. Jpatokal (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I usually agree with intelligent comments, such as the one by MilborneOne above which I was responding to. I am not so sure if that quality is applicable to your comments, thou. ;)--Huaiwei (talk) 17:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that people read and familiarise themselves with the Warsaw Convention and Montreal Convention. This has nothing to do with a parent/subsidiary relationship (nice to see also that Huaiwei now recognises the subsidiary/parent relationship), and nothing to do with marketing, but everything to do with the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Convention and laws in each and every country which is a signatory state to the ICAO and these conventions. After reading those conventions and local laws, read the Contract of Carriage of the airlines. A bit of exposure to these important aspects of civil aviation operations will help one understand why you would have some airlines listed like this, and others not. Marketing plays all but a small part, because the marketing is determined by those conventions and laws. As my removal of Singapore Airlines was the reason for this in the first place, when Silkair 185 crashed, who did Boeing and the families sue? Silkair? or Singapore Airlines? The answer is Silkair, as it was Silkair who operated the flight, it was a Silkair aircraft, and flew on a Silkair schedule. Now, where this project needs to pay close attention to is the latest craze these days, particularly in Europe; that being the virtual airline - I am not talking about a computerised game, but a real virtual airline - a so-called airline which does not have the one thing that is required to call yourself an airline - an Air Operator's Certificate - all flights are undertaken by another entity which holds this precious AOC with aircraft which are operated by this other entity (the aircraft may or may not be painted in this so-called airlines colours). I am going thru a lot of the airline articles still looking at where improvements can be made on the whole for the airline project, and will thinking of ways to 'attack' these entities whilst at same time bringing it up for discussion on the airline project talk page. Just a couple of quick examples:

  • Fly Lappeenranta - a regional airline based in Finland with a single aircraft operated by Central Connect Airlines - ok, not unusual, often airlines will lease their fleet in. Look at their website, on the front page, yeah, it says Fly Lappeenranta provides service in co-operation with Central Connect Airlines - could still mean that they use CCA aircraft. Their company page says The company has chosen Central Connect Airlines as operator for the flights - again, could just mean that CCA is operating the aircraft (possibly under a wet lease arrangement). It isn't until you get to the Conditions of Carriage that it says:

Passenger travel agreement is done with Fly Lappeenranta Ltd, however our flights are operated under the license of JOB AIR - Central Connect Airlines (Carrier). Passengers have rights and responsibilities in accordance with Fly Lappeenranta’s terms and conditions and are to be read in conjunction with the air Carrier's Conditions of Carriage (Conditions of Carriage), which also applies to the passenger.

Unfortunately, the link to the CCA CoC isn't valid, and it isn't on the CCA website, but it is the CCA CoC which is the most important, as it is CCA operating the flight with CCA AOC, flight numbers, crew, etc, etc.

  • Air Åland - a regional airline based in Finland, with a single aircraft operated by Avion Express. Their About Company page mentions nothing. Their Partners page does mention UAB Avion Express, Airline company which operates Air Åland flights - could just be a dry lease arrangement. When you go to their Travel conditions page, they state:

Air carrier operating the services Your contract is with us, Air Åland, but our flights are operated under the license of UAB Avion Express, an air carrier registered in Lithuania ("the air carrier"), which country is subject to EU regulations of aviation. Passengers have rights and responsibilities in accordance with Air Åland’ terms and conditions as expressed here. These should be read in conjunction with the air carrier's Conditions of Carriage, which also apply to you. See Avion Express’ web page www.avionexpress.lt. Air carrier’s “Conditions of Carriage” are incorporated in your contract with Air Åland. The Avion Express’ Conditions of Carriage contain important provisions affecting you and, as with these Air Åland Terms and Conditions, you should refer to them before booking your flight. In the event of cancelled flights or delays as regulated in Articles 7.4 and 7.5 of Avion Express´ Conditions of Carriage and which refers to Air Ålands Terms and Conditions, it is Air Åland which resumes the full responsibility in accordance with the obligations towards passengers as stated in mentioned Articles.

The Category:Airlines of Sweden is half full of such 'airlines' too. This new craze is mainly limited to Europe, although it does occur in other countries too, SkyValue in the US, Kulula.com in South Africa (the article will be changed in due course, as it isn't a subsidiary of Comair, but rather it is just another operating name of Comair...businesses can have dozens of operating names of course), BritishJET in Malta, etc, etc. These need some looking into for sure. --Россавиа Диалог 17:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Before we digress onto related problems does anybody want to agree to simplify the guidelines as I suggested to give us a clearer starting point? MilborneOne (talk) 17:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
MilborneOne, I'm fine with using your suggestion as a starting point. Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Russavia, interesting point. So instead of the existing "Destination is served by another airline for the subject airline using the subject airlines flight number", we now have "Destination is served by another airline for the subject airline using the other airlines flight number"... would X operating for Y be a clear way of phrasing this? So we'd have "Central Connect Airlines operating for Fly Lappeenranta" (3B flight marketed as Fly Lappeenranta) and "Avion Express operating for Air Åland" (N9 flight marketed as Air Aland). Jpatokal (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm happy to agree with MilborneOne's suggested simplification as a starting point. SempreVolando (talk) 08:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Now to the subject at hand, and seriously, one can yawn over international conventions, but if one is truly knowledgeable about civil aviation operations, they would know that international airline operations are governed by either the Warsaw Convention, or its replacement the Montreal Convention. Back in 1929 when the Warsaw Convention treaty was signed, airlines operated their own services. In 1961, in the era of the beginning of true intercontinental civil aviation, the Guadalajara Convention treaty (a supplement to the Warsaw Convention) was signed, and officially known as Convention, Supplementary to the Warsaw Convention, for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air Performed by a Person Other than the Contracting Carrier...the reason for this aptly named Convention being signed wasn't carriage of passenger, but rather of cargo...but it now also covers codeshares and contract operations. The Warsaw Convention was replaced by the Montreal Convention which was signed in 1999, however, until each signatory state ratifies the 1999 convention, there are 2 conventions in force, depending on which states we are talking about. The Montreal Convention (Doc 9740) can be purchased from the ICAO, or you can view it for free here.
As Chapter V deals with this section, let this be the benchmark to work from, particularly as nearly all aspects of civil aviation (well at least those aspects which don't deal with the latest inflight entertainment on board the aircraft, formatting of flight numbers lists, or lists of accidents on airport pages which happened halfway across the world) are structured in such a way with this particular treaty in mind. Now, what I find more than mildly amusing, Huaiwei, is that you agree with what MilborneOne proposed above, yet you had something to say about my suggestion that people read up on these boring (yawn) conventions, when if you look at it:

  • Milborne - "Foo Airlines (Destination is served by subject airline using its own flight number and aircraft)" - this is obviously Qantas operated by Qantas
  • Milborne - "Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways (Destination is served by another airline for the subject airline using the subject airlines flight number)" - do you have any idea what this is in essence?

Perhaps Milborne can fill you in, but just a little hint for you, there are two versions, the first starts with Warsaw, the second starts with Montreal, and both end in Convention. Foo Airlines, well that is legally known as the contracting carrier, and Abc Airways is legally known as the actual carrier. And I mentioned this way way way way way up above (look just above where I and 2 other users were told we need a reality check), but of course, being the expert you have proclaimed yourself to be on many occasions, you already knew all this, right?
Now to address people who actually have a clue, MilborneOne, Jpatokal, SempreVolando, et al, in regards to what I presented above in regards to these 'virtual' airlines (and what hasn't been mentioned here, codeshares), as their operations are also covered by Chapter V of the Montreal Convention, and as both of us have already mentioned (and others as well, sorry people above), if the contracting carrier is not the actual carrier, then the format would be:

  • Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways

with the following exceptions/notations

  • Parent/subsidiary relationships are not to be included, unless Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways is fulfilled. For example, on the XYZ Airport article, we have Foo Airlines flying to XYZ as the contracting and actual carrier, and also operating to XYZ as the contracting carrier but the actual carrier is Abc Airways. If this is the case we will have:
  • Foo Airlines (Destinations)
    • Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways (Destinations)

However, there can occur the case where Foo Airlines does not fly to XYZ as both contracting and actual carrier, but only as the contracting carrier with Abc Airways as the actual carrier. If this is the case, we will have:

  • Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways (Destinations) [Note, that it is not necessary to have Foo Airlines above Foo Airines operated by Abc Airways]

Then we have airlines which don't have an AOC at all (those virtual airlines), with a format suggested by Jpatokal

  • Foo Airlines operated for Abc Airways (Destinations)

First and foremost we are not here to present marketing for any entity, so anything we present needs to be done so with references. Take for example AirAsia. The above would have the affect of separating AirAsia from Thai AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia and AirAsia X in these lists (refer to 4 different contracts of carriage on airasia.com), separate Valuair from Jetstar Asia, separate Jetstar from Qantas, separate Aeroflot-Don from Aeroflot, etc, etc --Россавиа Диалог 13:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Egads. I'm not sure delving into the minutiae of contracts of carriage is the best way to start sorting our airlines. I'm starting to lean in MilborneOne's direction, which would mean just three possible cases:
  1. Airline A operating with its own flight number
  2. Airline B operating for airline A with A's flight number
  3. Airline B operating for airline A with B's flight number (and A does not have an IATA code)
These can be differentiated unambiguously based on flight numbers alone. Jpatokal (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Contracts of carriage is the best way, e.g. do you know of any cargo airlines which operate as Foo Airlines, but in fact should be Foo Airlines operated by Abc Airways? Emirates' cargo division is one where this is the case (at least I believe it is still the case). If you look at it, having "Foo Airlines operated for Abc Airways" as a way of dealing with these virtual-airlines, is done so by using the contracts of carriage in a logical way. It doesn't change anything that MilborneOne has proposed, except it is given people a way of determining why that proposition makes complete and utter sense, and added a way to deal with these airlines at the same time.--Россавиа Диалог 18:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Suddenly, User:Mawai put Dragonair and Silkair flights under their parent companies. I have reverted edits on Hong Kong International Airport. Thanks! 74.183.173.237 (talk) 01:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The Huaiwei and Russavia Show

Thread split by User:Jpatokal for clarity, as the discussion below has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of airline destination lists. Jpatokal (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Before someone starts another round of extensive effort to make an impression with all that reference to international laws and conventions (yawn), I am kinda curious that he allerges that Boeing sued SilkAir. Now I didn't know that! Could you source for this and add this into the article please? And in this lengthy essay, I am wondering just what solution he is trying to offer here. Are we now to make distinctions by Air Operator's Certificates? If those "phantom airlines" are indeed a major concern to him, I suppose SilkAir and DragonAir are similarly gulty, since only these two airlines are targeted? It is one thing about having a genuine concern over a certain aspect of these articles, bringing it up to this talkpage for general discussion in a professional manner, and then taking action only after concensus has been formed. It is another when someone has an issue with certain entities, take certain actions against the supposed "WikiAds" without realising the offending "WikiAds" were not exclusive to these entities, opens a pandoras box when this inconsistency was brought up for discussion by others, keeps silent while everyone else frets over this problem, then tries to drown everyone out with an irrelevant blob of lawspeak without directing making a suggestion to solve the problem he ignited. I think everyone is still waiting for a solution. Kindly get back on track and address the main issue. Thank you.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

My humblest apologies Huaiwei, for I am only another pretentious wannabe, not an aviation geek expert (what's the parent company of Singapore Airlines again? - by the way, did you like the comment from another editor that it is one of the best referenced facts on WP, yet only one person has a problem with it). Now I am trying to find a source for you in regards to the Boeing lawsuit against Silkair (which was dropped after some time), but unfortunately, to fulfill your by now long known requirements that when it concerns a member of the fabtabulous Singapore Airlines Group only information from the airline can be taken into account, I can't find anything on www.silkair.com.sg about the Boeing lawsuit, so I guess the lawsuit was never filed. STOP THE PRESSES! I also can't find anything on silkair.com.sg in regards to SilkAir Flight 185, so if Silkair doesn't acknowledge this accident, then it mustn't have happened, so we best put that up for AfD eh? Seriously, a search of google for boeing+silkair+lawsuit will bring up the information you require to add to the article Boeing drops lawsuit against SilkAir and pilot due to new evidence and will also bring up something else that isn't in the article, Singapore Airline sues Boeing. --Россавиа Диалог 13:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, please don't move my comments. Huaiwei started this section straight off the bat assuming bad faith, even though he didn't read the existing guidelines (which the discussion so far has not changed one bit if you look at it), and is apparent that he has no idea of what he is talking about, and I have the right of reply - I have said my bit, and have moved on. --Россавиа Диалог 18:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

  • But, Russavia, I did find that info in an archive of SilkAir's website ;) ;) ;) [22] WhisperToMe (talk) 07:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

NWA SIN-MSP

I am getting sick and tired of seeing this but people continue to as "Minneapolis/St. Paul" and "Portland (OR)" as NWA destinations for Singapore even though Singapore is not added as a destination for either MSP or PDX. I thought we have removed those destinations not so long ago (since they stop at an NWA hub) or am I going crazy. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 15:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

"Singapore is not added as a destination for either MSP or PDX": Can you state a source for this please?--Huaiwei (talk) 10:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
According to NWA timetable, NW 19/20 MSP-NRT-SIN requires a plane change with the MSP-NRT leg a Boeing 747 and the NRT-SIN leg with a Airbus 332. As for the SIN-PDX flights, the flight goes thru an NWA hub (in this case is NRT), yes it does uses the Airbus 332 on both segments but you have to look at the arrival and departure gate. An IP (not mine) added it to the Singapore Airport page along with MSP. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 14:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That is because that person added the flight as it is a direct flight, regardless of a plane change.--Huaiwei (talk) 15:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:AIRPORTS states that it has to be the same aircraft. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 18:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:AIRPORTS does not define industry terminology.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Correct, reliable, third party, verifiable sources define the terminology. WP:AIRPORTS defines how that terminology will be adapted across the project so as to have a consistent feel amongst all airport articles. --Россавиа Диалог 19:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Airport disambiguation

The template {{disambig}} typically is used to categorize the disambiguous page itself. Also, WikiProjects normally categorized Disambiguous pages via the disambiguous talk page. Category:Disambig-Class aviation pages and Category:Disambig-Class airport pages contains such talk page categorization. However, WikiProject Airports and/or WikiProject Aviation also categorizes the disambiguous page itself. See Category:Airport disambiguation. Is there really a need to segment Airport disambiguous pages from Category:Disambiguation? If not, please consider changing {{Airport disambig}} to {{disambig}} on the so tagged disambiguous pages. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 20:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I don't see a need for a separate airport disambiguation template. The wording of {{disambig}} reads fine on airport disambiguation pages, see Ryan Field for an example. -Canglesea (talk) 01:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Southwest Airlines focus cities

I think we need to have an objective definition for this, because Southwest technically does not make any distinction between its stations, but we have revert wars going on over what airports are and are not "focus cities" for Southwest. Any suggestions? FCYTravis (talk) 04:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Taken from the Southwest Airlines talk page: "The top-10 list was implemented because Southwest has so many large operations that its rediculous to list all of them for focus cities, so to keep things simple, we have just listed destinations from Southwest's website's top ten chart." For those who don't know, Denver and Nashville are the two cities that have been of discussion the past few hours. The real question is, bottom line, where we draw the line for Southwest's focus cities. If we keep adding more and more, pretty soon we're going to have about 60 of Southwest's 64 destinations in that little infobox. Sox23 04:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
100 daily flights = focus city, maybe? I realize that's pretty arbitrary, but at some level all of this is pretty arbitrary, and if we don't have some line... all or none of WN's cities can be "focus cities." FCYTravis (talk) 04:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
That's pretty much WN's Top Ten destination chart; SAN is number 10 at 103 daily departures. The only upcoming cities I can see creeping up to the 100 daily flights are BNA and DEN, and that just leaves us in the same situation we are in right now...Sox23 05:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Destination lists as a table?

Apologies if this has come up before, as I usually don't spend much time over here on the Airports project and have mostly stuck to the Airlines project (though of course I do update airport articles too). But I noticed that someone had changed the destination list on San Diego International Airport to be in a table [23] and after it was reverted, that editor commented that it was copied from the style used by the Perth Airport. I have to admit, I like the table style so I wanted so see if there were thoughts about moving to it. Currently, the only thing that was lost from the SAN article was the notation of the gate numbers in each terminal, and those could be re-added via prose. Another possibility, for airports where airlines have exclusive (or near exclusive) gate assignments, would be a fourth column indicating which gates airlines use. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Mixed feelings. One big plus is that it is sorted by airline. I'm not sure that losing the gate numbers is all that bad. Maybe a summary table to include this information if we feel that it is needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I actually prefer the table list since it reduces the space of the article and another plus is that the airlines are sort alphabetically. I actually made an example for MNL, click this. pikdig (talk) 01:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
For layout, I think having the terminals as the second column would be the better choice. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea, but the text is way too small as-is on that table (probably a simple fix) and I don't like that the Express carriers aren't clearly visually differentiated from their parent airlines, as they are currently by the indent. FCYTravis (talk) 01:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at Perth Airport now. I think a few minor changes to increase the size of the text and reduce the table size fix your concern and improve the layout. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it might make sense to have this open as collapsed so that readers who are not interested in this level of detail can more quickly scroll past the contents. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example of what I made with the data of MNL:

pikdig (talk) 22:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is a version reformatted to move the terminal column. Leaving it out on the right make the readability more difficult. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
That looks good, but why make the width 95? pikdig (talk) 23:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I like it, but a couple of thoughts. The airline column gets pushed pretty narrow, because there are so many destinations. I suggest adding {{nowrap}} around the airline names so that they don't wrap and make the width more reasonable. I also like it with the terminal on the left. The "Show" link is in the Terminal column; any way to push that all the way to the right? Also, the column widths are different when the table is shown and hidden and it's a bit disconcerting. Finally, we need a better way to deal with the affiliate carriers. Philippine Airlines versus PAL Express don't line up well, and Continental Airlines versus Continental Micronesia and Japan Airlines versus JALways should be clearer. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
For me, I have to click show twice to get it to work with firefox and it does move around. This is a presentation issue. Yes, the way the affiliated carriers line up leaves something to be desired. This probably needs to be subtables. However doing this could make coding the entries difficult for a large percentage of editors. I adjusted the width of the airline column some. How does that look. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Made some changes, but it would make the table unsortable. pikdig (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's better if its sortable, since it can be useful to have the entries sorted by either terminal (if a reader wants to see who is in a particular terminal) or by airline (if a reader wants to see where a particular airline is). I think for the affiliated carriers, it ought to work to give each its own line, since in some cases they're in separate terminals anyway. At PHL, for example, mainline US Airways is in Terminals A, B, and C, US Airways Express flights operated by Republic are in Terminals B and C, and all other US Airways Express flights are in Terminal F. I only have the click "show" twice problem with PikDig's table, and only in Firefox, not in Safari (using a Mac). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

How about now, is it any way better? Also made one for PHL. pikdig (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
All of the airlines need to be in the airline column and not under destinations. That probably means a subtable of some kind. Not sure how I feel about listing the multiple terminals together since it does not sort well. Maybe we need to go back to the see other terminal entry in the destinations column. Also the terminals should be right justified as in my last example for readability. Also we need to loose the italics for destinations. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Not that I don't like the tables, but I think that the current format is a whole lot easier to see and read than the proposed table format...Sox23 22:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
One advantage of the table format is sortability. If I want to find out what terminal Northwest Airlines is in at PHL, I have to look through each terminal section to find them. With a table, I can sort by airline and find Northwest in alphabetical order. I think i actually liked it better with the smaller font, but that could be a display issue and as a Safari/Mac user things look a bit different than the majority of readers who are probably using Windows. I'm not convinced that we need the tables to be hidden actually. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah definitely if we switch to this, the tables should not be hidden...Sox23 23:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example, using PHL, of what I had in mind. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Help with Tennessee Airports

Hey guys, I've started adding entries for the airports in Tennessee, as listed at List of airports in Tennessee. For an effective template, check out Perry County Airport or McMinn County Airport. Images are coming from the Tennessee DOT Aeronautics Division website at http://www.tdot.state.tn.us/aeronautics/airports/iii.htm. Thanks! nf utvol (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport

Uploaded pictures of airplanes and the aiport in Saskatoon. Don't know the airplanes' manufacturer, name or type. Which pictures should be in article on Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport. Located in commons at Saskatoon Airport If anyone can help it would be appreciated.SriMesh | talk 05:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Airport naming conventions

When naming airport articles, is it proper to name the airport according to the offical FAA listed name, or the name referenced by state or local agencies? For example,. Franklin Municipal-John Beverly Rose Airport is the name listed by the FAA as far as I can tell, but other places reference it as either the "Franklin Municipal Airport" or "John Beverly Rose Field". Which is proper naming convention here? Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 17:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

  1. The two FAA sources you cite in the article (the FAA Airport Master Record and the 2005 NPIAS report to Congress) to support the name "Franklin Municipal-John Beverly Rose Airport" both list the name as "FRANKLIN MUNI-JOHN BEVERLY ROSE". Like most airports in the FAA's database, the facility name does not include the word "AIRPORT" (which can be found in a separate facility type field). The other source you cite is AirNav, but that website uses the same FAA Airport Data (5010) and simply combines the facility name with the facility type (a good reason why AirNav and similar sites should not be cited as a source for airport names). When expanding an abbreviated FAA name, the word "Airport" is not always added at the end of the name. For example "AITKIN MUNI-STEVE KURTZ FIELD" is properly expanded as "Aitkin Municipal Airport - Steve Kurtz Field", not "Aitkin Municipal - Steve Kurtz Field Airport" (note: AirNav actually handles that one correctly now, but it didn't in the past).
  2. Airports are named by their owners, not the FAA. Therefore, more weight should be given to the name listed on the official website of the airport or the airport's owner. The airport's official web pages on the website of the City of Franklin (the airport's owner) show the name (in text and in a logo) as "Franklin Municipal Airport". Another document on that website gives the name as both "Franklin Municipal Airport" and "John Beverly Rose Field". A photograph of a sign at the airport entrance (displayed in the article's infobox) also shows both of these names. Based on this information, the correct expansion of "FRANKLIN MUNI-JOHN BEVERLY ROSE" would actually be "Franklin Municipal Airport - John Beverly Rose Field".
  3. For an article name, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) suggests using the most common name. For most airports that is the portion containing "Airport" (for example, an article named Aitkin Municipal Airport and a redirect named Steve Kurtz Field). I updated the article in question with additional references indicating the most common name is Franklin Municipal Airport, therefore I think the page should be moved back to Franklin Municipal Airport.
-- Zyxw (talk) 18:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Let me look in my hard copy airport directory and see what it is listed as. Based on that, that should be the most common name referenced (at least by pilots). I can weight that against the other references as well. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 21:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (airports) and its talk page. It's about time we finally agreed on some guidelines for this... Jpatokal (talk) 08:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Colombian Airports

Hello. We keep getting users with Colombian IP addresses who at least weekly invade Colombian airport articles adding flags, misguided information, one time charter routes as "destinations", airlines with only intention and no concrete plans or even authority to fly routes, or even airlines which the press has stated may start a route, and even airlines that are upcoming start ups with not even an aircraft yet purchased added as destinations "coming soon". They also perpetuate entire restyling of the article's to different setups such as no destinations, separating international and domestic destinations per airline with no international or domestic division of the airport, and adding information in broken English which they insist is correct even after their broken English is corrected (ex. using "National routes" as opposed to "Domestic routes", National being synonymous with the way it would be said in Spanish, it keeps being reverted back to national). The task is getting at times hard for one or two users to contain, at the moment it is at a slow period, but often IPs and new users come in and pretty much trash he articles with no sourcing and get into edit battles due to their insistance on unsourced accuracy. I'm asking for help from the wikiproject to add these airports to their watchlists and help us in keeping the articles accurate, sourced, and uniformed in styling as well as helping to verify unsourced information. Can anyone help? Thanks. -- SmthManly / ManlyTalk / ManlyContribs 18:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Would getting them protected against IP edits help? HkCaGu (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Would there be enough justification for that? -- SmthManly / ManlyTalk / ManlyContribs 23:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I have indeed noticed this as well. I don't think IP blocks will work as there's probably an issue with IP addresses being reassigned and such that would make it pretty difficult to prevent. NcSchu(Talk) 00:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I was not talking about block; I was talking about protection, as in only registered users can edit. This way those users can be warned and be brought to attention of WikiProject guidelines. HkCaGu (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I should also note that it's definitely not just Colombian articles, it's pretty much all central/south American airports. I have one on my watchlist that was changed after only a week of my correcting it. NcSchu(Talk) 00:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
An IP block would be a nice temporary fix, but we just need to get a few more users watching the articles, I'm the most active one there, and there's a few less active but regular users. If other LatAM airports suffer this, list them and I'll help out, I'm just getting tired of having to constantly be reverting entire articles, several times a day sometimes. -- SmthManly / ManlyTalk / ManlyContribs 02:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Still, I feel like we couldn't protect every single Latin American airport page. The only two pages I'm currently watching are Mariscal Sucre International Airport and José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport. I'd be more than happy to add more to my watchlist and help manage those as well. I really don't have that many pages on my watchlist compared to most (~55), so I have room to grow. NcSchu(Talk) 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
You can go to any colombian airport article such as El Dorado International Airport, at the bottom there's an infobox linking everyone airport in Colombia together, try adding Cartagena, barranquilla, cali, medellin and medellin olaya herrera, san andres, santa marta, and a few others, all the ones with commercial service, the rest are normally empty. I'll add a few more to mine from other countries -- SmthManly / ManlyTalk / ManlyContribs 17:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Neat template in WikiProject

I was impressed with the easy to use template at the top of the WikiProject Aviation article. Makes it real easy to get around. Neat! Student7 (talk) 21:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Airports - where planes are flying to

I don't agree that airport articles should keep up with where airlines are flying. Simply listing airport capabilities, listing airlines that are hosted (with link to airline which may well have where they fly to and from). It think maintaining this extra unecessary listing is distracting to the airport since it basically has nothing to do with it. It is a perfectly good airport just sitting there with non-flying planes! :) Actually having number of flights from prior years would be useful, tons of cargo, budget of course. All that would be useful. But keeping even tiny airports up with where planes are flying to and from is silly, needless and distracting IMO.Student7 (talk) 21:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I tend to disagree with you. Just as which airlines fly from an airport is a property of the airport, so are the direct commercial destinations available from the airport. It also shows the reach of an airport, although that could be accomplished through prose. Though this isn't a factor in including it in Wikipedia, I find it terribly useful and interesting. --Matt (talk) 22:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
"It is a perfectly good airport just sitting there with non-flying planes!" I'm not sure whether this is sarcastic, but it's just wrong. With non-flying planes, an airport is a parking lot. Destination lists are relevant and informative, and in fact do satisfy WP policies of inclusion (as any attempt to remove them has seen), but I think they should universally have tags that have them hidden by default so that they don't unnecessarily double or even triple the size of the article. NcSchu(Talk) 00:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Didn't quite understand the remark "..have tags that have them hidden by default..." Sorry. I'm not trying to be thick here. I would like to reduce the article size if possible. Student7 (talk) 11:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
You can see an example at Manchester Airport. The destination information is put into a table that is set to collapse on default. NcSchu(Talk) 12:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Wow! I like that. Any chance of suggesting that in the outline, at least for larger airports?
My intent (before seeing this non-invasive example), is from editing places. Most newbies say "(the place) is right next to..." "you can get easily from this place to..." making it a travelogue for some other nearby destination. The place itself, of course, is important, not as a gateway to some other place. I agree that airports (and other transportation depots) differ in that respect. Yet it seems (again before this example) to diminish the place/airport itself, taking the spotlight from local facilities and focusing it on distant destinations which are adequately covered someplace else (or in this case, in an airline guide someplace, and better yet, kept up to date by someone else).Student7 (talk) 00:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. The destinations of scheduled flights from an airport tend to provide some valuable information about the airport itself. One can determine the importance of the airport in the air traffic network, the regional, national, or international nature of the airport, the types of passengers the airports serve (ie, tourist destinations, business destinations, international destinations, etc.). The destinations served are too integral of a part of an airport's business to leave out. Also, most other transportation related articles tell such information, such as the cities served by a rail line or major cities along a highway's route.nf utvol (talk) 01:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Technical Information

Just how much detail is needed in the article. I would think that for most readers the infobox provides enough and things like North Bay/Jack Garland Airport#Technical Information is just too much. It's also hard to keep updated. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I don't have a problem listing FBOs is some cases, but that rest of the material is not encyclopedic. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree with Vegaswikian detail not really needed it appears to be a copy straight from a flight information publication - infobox detail is all that is needed. MilborneOne (talk) 20:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Other than the FBOs it's copied from the Canada Flight Supplement, but I notice that the info rarely gets updated. It's a tiresome enough job going through the CFS looking for the infobox changes without having to look and see if all of the other info has changed. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 10:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Where to list IFP?

Both Vision Airlines and Sun Country Airlines destinations list services to Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport (IFP) under Nevada, though the airport is actually in Bullhead City, Arizona. This seems to make sense as Laughlin is the primary destination, but on Delta Air Lines destinations and American Eagle destinations, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is listed under Kentucky, where the airport is physically located, though the primary city it serves is located in Ohio. Should the links to IFP in the destination lists be moved to Arizona for consistency? -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's very wrong to completely change the state that the airport is located in. 'Rounding' to the nearest large city is understandable, but when you must cross a state border I think that's going a bit overboard and can be misleading. NcSchu(Talk) 23:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Prospective users

Here's the scenario...airline pumps out press release...media picks it up and prints it...subject...destinations which Foo Airlines is considering operating services to in the future...this is not akin to Foo Airlines announcing that flights to Foo City will commence on 31 October 2008, but sometime in 2009/2010, and in some cases, Foo Airlines operated a charter flight to Foo City at some time back in 1945 and would like to start flying to Foo City some time in the future, whether that be in 2008, 2010 or 2159, there is nothing substantive in relation to a confirmed start date for services...Wikipedia editor takes this information and adds to Foo City Airport article.

An example of this is Melbourne Airport. Air Canada is listed as a prospective and future user with Considering resuming Melbourne, timeframe indeterminate. The inclusion of Air Canada in this list is this quote from the referenced article:

Mr Dufresne said Air Canada would also be interested in flying to Melbourne and possibly Brisbane. He said the airline operated to Melbourne for a season about five years ago and would like to try again.

Does Air Canada, or for that matter, any of the airlines listed in any of these sections of various airport articles, have the necessary route authorities from their home country and destination country? Do they own slots at the destination airport? If not, have they even started negotiations for slots at the destination airport? Is the airline merely dreaming about future plans many years down the track? And most importantly, do these sections, where prosective users have no firm start date belong? I am of the opinion, that no, they do not belong, as Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and the information is purely speculation. What are others opinions on this? --Россавиа Диалог 09:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Prospective users or airlines, are airlines that have expressed an interest in commencing services to a particular airport. Being listed as a prospective user itself does not bind an airline to an agreement to begin servicing any airport. The purpose of creating this list is that it identifies and describes airlines who have assessed, in this case Melbourne Airport, as a suitable destination for future services, and the nature of this list is made explicit in the title. Belonging to this list are airlines with no firm commitment to start services, but have made an explicit intention to begin services. Attached to each listing is a verifiable source of information that is not original research so it goes beyond speculation or rumor. The list provides a section for these airlines and it does not interfere with the list of current and confirmed future users.
Many of the airlines listed in Melbourne Airport (such as AirAsia X, Air India, Etihad, Qatar and Viva Macau) have likely commencement dates falling within the next 12 months, and have already secured operating rights. Others (Jetstar, Royal Brunei, Virgin Atlantic) are in the offing, owing to aircraft availability and other operational discussions. It would be reasonable to consider these listings as an expected future event, until it can be shown that their plans cannot be met. 210.50.89.43 (talk) 10:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I dont think that listing airlines that might provide a service is particularly notable, and as Russavia says a bit WP:CRYSTAL. Airlines speculate all the time on expansion plans and new routes. I dont have a problem once the process for permission for a route has commenced and is verifiable. Probably doesnt help by Melbourne Airport not being a particularly good example of layout and presentation and probably could do with a tidy up. MilborneOne (talk) 11:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
This came up on the airlines project a few months ago in the context of Philippine Airlines and San Diego International Airport, where PAL had announced plans to serve SAN but was pending government approval. The short discussion there seems to have ended up with the thinking that if we had a source stating the route was planned but pending government approval, it was ok to note as long as the status of the route was clearly indicated. That said, I still feel that it's a WP:CRYSTAL issue as well and best not to be noted until a firm start date is announced, but I thought I'd at least alert everyone to the previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airlines/Archive 3#Destinations - Pending Government Approval -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 15:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I believe that during a elated discussion, my position was to only list destinations that had all required approvals. This mostly applies to international flights. If the flight does not have all required governmental approvals, is it a planned destination or is it a desired goal? If the latter it clearly should not be listed. Of course sourcing could be a problem for keeping many proposals, but that would not hurt much since if there is a sourcing issue, it probably is not approved. Press releases about goals generally should not be used for encyclopedia entries. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I usually add destinations that have asked for government approval and add a source, since I look at these as being somewhat legitimate. Speculative routes I object to, for the obvious reasons. Even if airlines have said that they will add a destination but don't give at least a month or season I object to their inclusion. As some people may notice, when users add destinations with [begins 2009], for example, I remove them for being too vague. NcSchu(Talk) 19:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Publishing fatal accidents related to an airport on AIRPORT page

I read somewhere that you can/should publish airport-related accidents if the accident is related to the airport (eg Origin, Destination or accident happened AT the AP) and only if fatalities were reported and/or craft was totall loss. Is there a standard guideline how to publish these details. I can imagine a textual piece per accident but also a table with the main details. And if a Wiki page is made handling that accident a Wiki link should be included in the table. Example (for Agadir airport):

Date Origin Destination type fat. (occ)
of which crew(occ)
airline
aircraft
(probable) cause Memo
February 7 2002 AGA ALG freight 8 (8)
8 (8)
Volare Aviation
Antonov An-12
unknown none
August 21 1994 Agadir † CMN sch.pass. 44 (44)
4 (4)
RAM
ATR 42
delibarate crash by captain Disputed by Moroccan pilot ass.
April 1 1970 Agadir † CMN sch.pass 61 (82)
5 (6)
RAM
Caravelle
loss of control
during landing
none
August 9 1975 Paris Bourget Agadir † charter 188 (188)
7 (7)
Royal Jordanian
Boeing 707
loss of control
during landing
none

All accidents marked † relate to Agadir-Inzegane, the old airport with the same codes.[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonkie67 (talkcontribs) 01:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC) Sorry, had accidentally saved iso previewed article before finishing and signing. Is above given example an idea to publish this sort of data on the airport pages or is there another layout or template available. All suggestions welcome. --JanT (talk) 01:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The guidance on what to list is found here. I need to think about the columns you have in your example. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I am aware of these guidelines, this question is to start a discussion (or find the finished or ongoing discussion) in HOW to publish accident data on airport-pages. The example above is meant as a start, any proposals to improve the data is more then welcome. --JanT (talk) 05:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry dont like the table cant see anything wrong with a couple of lines of factual information. All the detail should be in the related accident article so I dont think it is needed on the airport page. MilborneOne (talk) 12:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
(jump back to prevent extreme short sentences)
That is exactly the reason why I started this discussion here. The current guideline states that accidents should only be put on an airport page in case of fatalities and/or complete loss of aircraft. IMHO we should check with the other contribs if this is the concensus, and if not: what would be the new guideline. If the concensus is to include these kind of accidents I would prefer a more or less standarized way how to report about these accidents.
My personal view is: do not include accident info on airport pages except when the accident happened ON or very near to the airport and/or when the airport (traf.ctrl, runway conditions, extreme wheater etc) plays an active roll in the accident.
Examples: The El-Al Bijlmermeer accident should NOT be published on the Schiphol page but the Tenerife disaster SHOULD be mentioned on theTenerife North Airport page. But this is only MY view, and I hope to find a new concensus when to mention data and if so: how to do it. The table above isn't my preferred way either, --JanT (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
If the regular contributors regarding airport-info work out a workable guideluine if and HOW to include disaster info on the pages —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonkie67 (talkcontribs) 18:12, 23 June 2008
A guideline on what is notable has only recently been agreed and I dont think that accidents only slightly related to the airport (departed from but crashed 2000 miles away for example) have ever been the norm in airport articles and I suspect would probably be deleted as not notable. MilborneOne (talk) 20:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't get my intentions wrong: I don't want to change any consensus or guideline. But as a new member contributing info in pages within the Aviation project-scope I try to find if a current -more detailed- guideline or unwritten consensus exists. Being new in the Av.Proj. I haven't followed any past discussions on what and how to include facts (not only on airports: general remark) on Wiki pages.I don't want to re-invent the wheel, but digging through all discussions related to the subject is not possible either. And while looking for guidelines a felt a (small) gap when discussing accidents. For myself, future attributors and also current authors, I am willing to write a more detailed guide how to publish airport information. A standard when to include an accident and how to include the info on the airport page would be nice; especially if the sub-workgroup on the accidents themselves have a guideline how to name accidents: references to the accident on Wiki are easier in that way... But as said: I don't want to change working methods - I only want to describe the consensus as good as possible and/or start a discussion on subjects without (complete) guidelines. All POV's and ideas welcome; also if you disagree with my intention to create a as complete as possible guide how to make airport pages. --JanT (talk) 23:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
It might stop examples like THIS where an accident (although very famous crash) is noted on the airport of destination but happened near New York. JanT (talk) 23:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#New C-class rating and another update to the project banner for our projects changes with the new class. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

UA IAD-SIN

Should Singapore be listed as a destination on the Washington Dulles International Airport? A IP keeps removing it saying that no flights found on united.com but there is (UA 803)....I have also removed it from the Singapore Airport page. I thought it was a direct flight with no plane change (and NRT is NOT a UA hub) since NRT is a UA focus city SIN stays as a destination for Dulles. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

If I search for this flight on United.com, it explicitly says "plane change" (even though both are 777s). So I don't think it should be included. --Matt (talk) 19:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Per the guidelines for airlines and destinations, flights that require a plane change and/or have different flight numbers should not be included. NcSchu(Talk) 19:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
United.com states it as a plane change even if its just a stopover using the same aircraft. In any case, Tokyo-Narita is NOT a hub for United, just a focus city. So I will think that it uses the same aircraft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.212.145.171 (talk) 07:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
NRT is not a UA focus city anymore. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"Port Louis" or "Mauritius"

Should we list this destination as Port Louis or Mauritius when an airline flies to this island? Cause some airport pages have it listed as "Port Louis" and some have it listed as "Mauritius". I just curious if this was discussed before. 74.183.173.237 (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think "Mauritius" is the only appropriate choice. That's the name of the island the airport serves. The airport is not in Port Louis, and Port Louis is a small city with a small population which just happens to be the political capital. HkCaGu (talk) 17:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
I thought we decided to use Port Louis at one time or another. NcSchu(Talk) 18:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Defunct Airport Templates

All the defunct Airport templates have been migrated to {{Infobox Airport}}, and the old templates now deleted and tidied up.

I've done at least 2200 migrations in the last few days, and am likely to have made some mistakes, so i have corrected any i've seen.


Thanks


Reedy 10:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Well done! Much appreciated. - Canglesea (talk) 01:46, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Please note that there has been a high level of Vandalism in this particular section of articles as of late so you need to be actively on the lookout for that kind of stuff. QualityControl3533 (talk) 17:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe what QualityControl3533 is referring to is the destinations sections, which with all the cutbacks being announced by airlines recently, is having unsourced changes about new/added service being made. I'd like to remind editors to provide a source for the changes. One particular instance both of us have been looking at in the past few minutes is the United Airlines section of Los Angeles International Airport, where, while mostly correct, a couple of changes had incorrect dates (based on my checking against the electronic timetable at united.com), and no source was provided. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 18:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Updating US-Airport Template

I was told to post my request for a change to the US-airport template here by Dual Freq. Since I have posted my opinions on the subject on the discussion page of the template I am going to copy what I wrote on that page here to bring the discussion to you all. Here is what I wrote before:

After reading this entire discussion I would like to bring up several points which I believe have merit. Some features that are now becoming standard on most websites are not appearing on AirNav. For instance, while most are now explaining clearly to an individual the weather conditions at an airport through images and text AirNav does not. AirNav provides the METAR way of viewing the weather but a non-pilot will not understand it. If we want to have resources for pilots and non-pilots alike then we need to link to a site that provides both. Seeing that in the template we also have a link to NOAA why don’t we attempt to find a site that pulls its weather information from NOAA? That way we reduce the template by one link?

I have read in the discussion about adding certain sites that provide fuel prices from FBOs at the airports. AirNav does provide this ability but lacks credibility when any user can login on to the site and change the fuel prices for an airport to a possibly incorrect amount. If we were to add a site that did this then we will need to find one that only allows the FBOs to update their fuel prices so it can actually have some credibility about the price of fuel at that FBO.

I think the biggest issue I am having right now is when there are websites that provide the same information as AirNav but present the information in a more logical/easier to read interface then why do we consistently go back to AirNav every single time? I understand that Alexa is a good metric to measure a website’s worth but you must also consider that sometimes an established site does not provide the most information or present that information in the best possible way compared to possibly newer websites or other alternatives.

The site that I currently use for researching/shopping for fuel prices is globalair.com I saw that you all have mentioned them before but said that they were difficult to link to. I searched around on Google and found several sites that link to them in a way that should be easy to link to. The link is simply http://www.globalair.com/airport/airport.aspx?AptCode=LAL. In that format I do not see why we could not link to them in the template. I suggest that we add global air to the template. - Neilh89 (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I would have thought this template is not needed in an encyclopedia it adds no value to the article, Wikipedia is not a provider of real time information, travel guides or a weather guide. Suggest it is sent to Template for deletion. MilborneOne (talk) 11:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
While I don’t want to suggest that we delete the US-Airport template, I do feel that we should keep it up to date with sites that will be useful to the majority of Wikipedia users, pilots and non-pilots alike. This in mind I simply suggested globalair.com because it provides users the option to show weather in an easy to read format for non-pilots and the METAR way of viewing weather for pilots at the same time. I also believe that the layout on globalair.com is much easier to read for pilots as it does not have all of its information on one very lengthy page but instead uses tabs to help breakup the information into readable chunks. - Neilh89 (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Charter Airline listings

Recently, an editor added sections on charter airlines that "serve" Los Angeles International Airport. I removed it with the feeling that if a charter airline doesn't serve LAX on a regular enough basis to be assigned a specific terminal location, then it's not accurate to list it as serving the airport. The change was reverted so rather than trying to get into a revert war I made a comment on Talk:Los Angeles International Airport and there hasn't been any followup, so I thought I'd make a note here and ask project members to take a look and chime in. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As one example to illustrate my concern, Allegiant Air is listed as serving Las Vegas as a charter airline. However, Allegiant is certified as a regular scheduled airline, and does not serve LAX as part of its scheduled service. If they were to fly between LAX and LAS, it would be an ad hoc charter; Allegiant does have some public charter programs, but they are not on a regular schedule, rather they typically serve different cities each week on casino junkets to places like Laughlin. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:14, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

My problem, which seems similar or identical to yours, with most charter airline 'services' is that they are unpredictable services that aren't dependent on any kind of schedule and seem just as random and sudden as private jets flying into an airport. NcSchu(Talk) 19:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I think our problems are about the same. Just because Lauda Air flew a round the world trip in 1999 that stopped in HNL doesn't mean that Lauda would have been listed on the HNL article. An example of a charter I would list would be the seasonal Belair flights to SFO on behalf of Airberlin, which are listed on the SFO article, and not under a special charter section but listed with the other airlines in the terminal at which they operate. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I think only "scheduled" charter (or regular charter flights [such as Frontier's saturday charter to Cancun from Chicago]) should be included. It does seem rediculous to list an airline that stopped at LAX once because the list will make it seem like it's a regular flight. Sox23 22:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Not to bring specific cases in to this unnecessarily, but what would we say about the Jet2 flight to EWR that operates only twice a year (yes, two flights a few days apart only in November). This was added to the Leeds Bradford International Airport Charter Flights section and to the Newark Liberty International Airport Terminal B as a seasonal flight. I removed it the first time but it was added again a month or so afterward and I decided not to remove it. However I still think that two flights in a calendar year is a bit of a stretch to include under the other daily and weekly flights. NcSchu(Talk) 22:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Downloadable airport data with lat/long included?

Any ideas for where to find reasonably up-to-date airport data, with latitude and longitude included, for download? I'm currently using Arash Partow's Global Airport Database, but it's very limited (<5000 entries with lat/long data) and badly out of date (according to them the Soviet Union hasn't collapsed yet!). I would be willing to pay a token amount if necessary, but if all else fails I'll just go distill all 23MB of the last DAFIF... Jpatokal (talk) 15:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That's almost two years old as well. The various listings at Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports#Aeronautical Information Publications (AIP) will be more up to date. However, most of that information is in a PDF format. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 20:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced London Stansted Airport additions

An anon user added a flurry of new additions including multiple Air Canada and Delta Air Lines destinations to London Stansted Airport and stated that they will begin either late this year or next year. I reverted the addition as they weren't cited and I hadn't heard anything about these new flights, but as I'm work I don't really have time to research them to see if they're genuine. Does anyone have any info about the flights that were added (and then removed by myself)? NcSchu(Talk) 19:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be a chronic problem recently; there have been issues with unsourced changes on other articles too, such as Los Angeles International Airport. I'd say reverting it should be ok, noting that it's unsourced in the edit summary. Another option would be to add {{fact}} tags to the addition to give the editors a few days to provide a source before reverting. Finally, I'll note that sources for new service can usually be found pretty quickly using Google News, and if a specific date is verified can be verified against the schedules posted on the airline's web site.
I'd like to propose that we add to the style guide that service changes be individually cited using footnote references. For a single change (e.g. the date denoting the addition or termination of a particular destination) the reference should be right with the date; if it's a new or leaving airline it is sufficient to note it at the end of the airline's entry on the list. The citation guidelines should also apply to the destination list on airline articles. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I completely agree; there's no harm in requiring every new destination/termination to be sourced and it would improve the airport articles greatly. I in fact did do a quick search in Google News and found nothing, hence my concern. NcSchu(Talk) 01:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Former and proposed airlines serving YVR

I just moved Past and Future Airlines serving YVR to the above. Any thoughts on a better name? Is it encyclopedic? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought somewhere in this project it was suggested that adding former airlines was not encyclopedic in airport articles! Cant see why proposed new routes could not be in the article if they have proper cites. Suggest deletion. MilborneOne (talk) 10:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree that former airlines serving the airport is not encyclopedic, but I'll go along with that if it was the consensus. Proposed to me is a bit tricky, as sometimes things get far in the future, and the word "proposed" suggests things that may never happen or may be years away (like the Philippine Airlines MNL-YVR-SAN service). Regardless, there's not enough content there to warrant having it on its own page. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm so-so on past airlines. Personally I think the page is kind of pointless as it now stands. Past airports really need to be referenced and I think they verge on irrelevance unless they are made to have substance rather than just being a list. Future airlines probably violate WP:CRYSTALBALL unless they're definitive, in which case they should be kept with the other destinations anyway. NcSchu(Talk) 17:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Category renames

Can a few other editors drop in on this rename request Category:Aircraft Ground Handling? I'm not sure what it should be but the proposed target seems to read oddly to me. Maybe there is a better choice. At this point I have no opinion. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Article creation assistance

There's a new template Template:WPAVIATION creator that can be used to assist in creating new articles. It will start things off by creating a page with all the standard information/headers/infoboxes, etc. You just have to fill in the blanks and save. It's still in the early design stages, so check it out and let me know how it can be improved. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Nifty. NcSchu(Talk) 22:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Neat! - Canglesea (talk) 01:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Malay or Caticlan

I just wanna clarify on how we're suppose to list the destination on airport articles. Because Godfredo P. Ramos Airport which is located in Malay, Aklan. However, on the timetables of the airlines serving (Asian Spirit, Cebu Pacific, PAL Express, SEAIR) the airport, it is stated as Caticlan. The Caticlan article on Wikipedia also redirects to Malay, Aklan. pikdig (talk) 09:59, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Would somebody please answer my question. pikdig (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Destinations by region?

User:VAIO HK seems to have been adding collapsed tables to airport articles listing the destinations by region. I'm just wondering if this is something we had talked about since I just don't see the point in having a list that for all intents and purposes is redundant. NcSchu(Talk) 17:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy is in the eye of the beholder, for what appears to be "useless" to some may be a boon to others, especially those who want to see at a glance the geographical extent of air services offered from the said airport. I personally find it very useful when trying to, say, list out all the North American airports served from Heathrow, without having to manually identify the airports by location from the gigantic airline/destination lists and then sieving out the duplicate entries due to multiple airlines flying to the same location(s).--Huaiwei (talk) 17:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking along the same lines. It is redundant since the information is already there, contained within each listed airline, but having them grouped by region is good as it gives a quick overview of the extent of an airport's service. Destination maps, as on San Diego International Airport can achieve the same result, but as images are harder to maintain than text. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I find the listing of simply continent and then airport to be particular useless for my geography skills. It seems to me you can really only see that the airport has flights to a location you are already aware of, in which case it adds nothing extra. Saying that in Heathrow, for instance (as that is where I fell upon this table), there is a flight to a place called Rijeka in Europe isn't particularly useful given that I don't know where that is. And as I'm assuming it's supposed to be a more at-a-glance piece of information, it seems to defeat the purpose to require me to navigate to the specific page in order to figure out this location. While I do agree it's interesting to break down the destinations this way and I appreciate that they're being added in a collapsed-default mode, I think they need to be tweaked before I actually see them as a benefit. NcSchu(Talk) 19:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I am of the opinion that the usefulness of any section should not be defined by those with limited knowledge in related areas. There are in fact many who study international transport networks who would find this very fundamental to them. To the novice who is confronted with the question "which airport in Europe has the most extensive aviation connectivity?", he would invariably pull up the corresponding airport articles and start comparing the destination lists, count the number of destinations, note those which appear in one but is missing in another, and will be able to categorically make statements such as "Airport X has excellent connectivity to North America, but looses out significantly to Airport Y in its connections to Africa" or "Airport Z has flights to more destinations, but a significant number of them are to domestic destinations only with very little international destinations". Of course, there are numerous other factors to consider if one is to conduct in-depth research on this topic, but to many elementary students out there, this kind of analysis is already good enough to earn them grades!--Huaiwei (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Airport list style

Is there an accepted way to format an airport list? List of airports in Algeria is nice for smaller countries won't work very well for some of the sub lists of List of airports in Canada, or will it? List of airports in Pakistan is pretty good too (almost FL quality).

As a second part, why limit List of airports in the United States to "public use airports providing scheduled passenger services with over 10,000 passenger boardings per year" (compare List of airports in the United States#South Dakota and List of airports in South Dakota), when it could be divided up just like List of airports in Canada. If I proposed dividing the US list up, would it get support? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 09:23, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the Canadian model. I'd support reorganizing the US list to the Canadian model. - Canglesea (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Support but I would suggest that, based on the explanation in List of airports in the United States, that it be moved to List of primary airports in the United States prior to updating the article. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 19:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Nifty. It's kind of silly to claim a list of airports in the United States and then surprisingly exclaim that it's only for the big ones. The Canadian method makes more sense due to the size. NcSchu(Talk) 19:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I put a page move request on the page, just to make sure everyone interested can chime in, but it can probably be moved in a couple of days. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
The way I see it, the List of airports in the United States is not "limited", but rather it is an expanded version of the format used by List of airports in Canada. Due to the large number of airports, both countries use multiple pages containing smaller lists (by state in the U.S. and by name, airport code or province in Canada). Both pages mentioned above have links to those lists (on the U.S. page, the state name above each section links to the full list of public airports for that state). Both pages also include direct links to Wikipedia articles for major airports: NPIAS primary airports in the U.S. (over 10,000 boardings per year) and NAS airports in Canada (over 200,000 passengers per year). Obviously there are many more NPIAS primary airports, but the concept of both pages is the same. The list requires no additional maintenance since it transcludes the airport data from each state list. Also, the table formatting allows for sorting the list by name, airport code, passenger boardings, etc. -- Zyxw (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Technically that's correct, but I think the problem lies in the way it is presented. The title is "List of airports in the United States", so before you get to the page you're expecting to see either a full list of all US airports, or a list of sub-lists. When you get to the page the first line tells you its a list of airports grouped by state, etc... but the first state, Alabama, has only 5 airports listed on the page (The second line explains that this is not a full list). The second part of the page, the TOC would logically take you to the state list in full, but it again only takes you to the partial list on the page. Finally the full list of airports for each state is found with the piped link in the table, but just by looking at the table, the first link, ALABAMA looks like a link to the page on the state, not a link to a list. On the Canada page it is very explicit about where to find the List of airports in British Columbia. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I have updated List of airports in the United States to address some of the concerns mentioned above and in the discussion at Talk:List of airports in the United States. The template of links to the state lists is now at the top of the page. The second section now has links to the portions of List of airports by ICAO code containing U.S. airports. The third section contains the list of primary airports. -- Zyxw (talk) 04:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Unnotable Articles: Consensus Needed

I have recently found a problem with some airport pages. I do not think that an airport is notable if they are not covered in multiple third party sources. I do not believe that an FAA code is enough. The site you are getting the codes from is just a list, which is not enough for wikipedia. But, I am aiming at private airports and helipads. I have found a really big problem with the helipads. A helipad for a hospital is not notable, unless it can pass WP:N. In my opinion, a helipad should not have it's own article if it is privately owned. I think that helipad page should be merged with the article about the owners.(i.e. the hospital or organization that owns it) The same should go for private airports. The FAA code just confirms it's existence, which is not near enough for wikipedia standards to be met. I see a great number of non notable airport pages out there, and nothing is ever done to add reliable sources/notable sources to it. The FAA souce is just a list, which should not even be on the external links section other than to prove the existence of the airport. I need the viewpoints of you guys here. Undeath (talk) 02:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually agree with that - there are a lot of unnotable articles about these airports out there. I would suggest these articles be deleted, but with careful evaluation of whether they are or are not notable. Perhaps just a list of these airports/helipads with there codes (there may already be one, I'm not sure) would serve the purpose far better? Could you give an example of an article you believe is not notable? Callumm (talk) 16:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Here is an example. St. Elizabeth Hospital Heliport. Undeath (talk) 18:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, totally agree with that one, a pointless article! It would be an extremely large task to get rid of them, and a similar sized one to make a list of them. Any ideas as to how we should (if at all) go about this? Callumm (talk) 12:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Notability is going to vary based on each case. Many of these can establish notability based on incidents that they were involved in. However a good number may not. A strong case could be made that none of these should be deleted, and they should be merged into the article on the complex they are located at. The case of St. Elizabeth Hospital Heliport is interesting in that if that one is merged, it needs to be replaced by a dab page since there are other heliports with the same name, '8MN7' is an example. So I think it is clear that any of these with problems need to be merged, leaving a redirect or dab page, and not deleted. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
If you want me to, I will round up a list of all airports that I think are non notable. (i.e., the heliports and other little grass landing strips) Undeath (talk) 05:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
That would be great if you're up to it! Callumm (talk) 07:33, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Here is the beginning of it. Undeath (talk) 01:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a couple I have watchlisted in case someone decides grass strips are not very notable. Chadwick Airport is a 1600 ft grass strip in someone's backyard, recently survived afd despite no assertion of notability. Stoney Point Airfield is a 2500 ft grass strip in Georgia. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I put a prod tag on that second one. There is no way that is notable. It's like the neighborhood pool for rich neighbors. Undeath (talk) 04:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I didn't realize you were going to prod it, I thought the list was going to be part of a larger effort to make an airports notability standard. Since the Chadwick Airport article survived, doesn't that make it the minimum notable "airport" article? The Stoney point one is much more notable than that one, it actually has its own website, while Chadwick has nothing except that it exists. If Chadwick Airport is now the minimum, doesn't that mean all published landing sites can be included? One possible method for US airports to help establish some kind of benchmark of notability is the published Airport/Facility Directory here. Looking at Oregon and Georgia, neither Chadwick or Stoney point are listed, but there are still many airports in the directory. I would think if it's not in the A/FD and there are no notable incidents or news articles about it, then it wouldn't be notable. That might be a good place to start from, otherwise any grass landing strip is going to be added as a stub, like Bruce's Airport. Something needs to be established in this project, otherwise people are going to waste a lot of time creating stubs to de-redlink the list of airports pages, while others are wasting time trying to delete them. Is there any consensus or ideas for an inclusion guideline to be used by WP:Airports? --Dual Freq (talk) 05:26, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I only prodded this one because it's just a few neighbors fun strip. There was nothing to merge it to. Undeath (talk) 06:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Airport

Please see Template talk:Infobox Airport#Automatic conversions and the section below. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 09:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Busiest Airports in Europe

A user has been adding the navbox {{Busiest Airports in Europe}} to airport articles, I have removed a few of them. I am sure we have discussed this or a very similar navbox before, it is just a large collection of links of the busiest airports in Europe in 2007. MilborneOne (talk) 21:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 7#Navbox:Busiest Airports in Europe and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 August 11#Template:Busiest airports in Europe. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 21:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks CBW we should have done that last time! MilborneOne (talk) 22:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:WAD

Please see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 August 12#Template:WAD. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

just clarifying...

you ARE NOT supposed to have a section on a page for an airport with FORMER airlines and destinations...correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duhhitsminerva (talkcontribs) 03:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not? If there is information from reliable sources, historical use of airports can indeed be notable.--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Airport moves

I just going to sleep and dont have the time to go through Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive airport page-moves? properly. Can someone take a look and see what's going on. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Using WikiTravel as appropriate external links?

Should anything from Wikitravel be added to the external links sections to an artciel. Cause John F. Kennedy International Airport and JetBlue Airways have a link about them from WikiTravel and I was wondering if it was appropriate adding them? 74.183.173.237 (talk) 19:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

NO WAY!! Using refs from another wiki site, is not trustable material. However as an External Link it is okay, but for an actual footnote, no way. -Marcusmax (talk) 23:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
I would agree. The question appears to be about External Links, and Wikitravel seems like a good site to link to, comparable to the Memory Alpha (a Wikia-hosted wiki) links on Star Trek articles. Per WP:SPS, wikis are generally not considered a reliable source and shouldn't be used as a reference for content in a Wikipedia article. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:07, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Breuner Airfield (RC model club private facility)

I need to let the WikiProject Airports folks know that a debate has been made challenging the minimum standards of an airport article. There's a new article for Breuner Airfield for a remote control model club's private facility. In satellite imagery, it was observed to have a 300 ft paved runway, with "X" painted on both ends (prohibiting use by aircraft). The author really wants to call the facility an airport, even though it is not FAA registered and therefore doesn't have an ICAO, IATA or FAA code. (And he claims he's not a member of the RC club - which makes it perplexing why he's so interested in pursuing the matter at all.) He has for several days been doing variations on the theme of adding the article to Category:Airports in the San Francisco Bay Area, List of airports in the San Francisco Bay Area and Template:Airports in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as editing the text with criteria for inclusion on these pages. He re-starts the same old discussion on the talk pages of these pages proposing changes of criteria to consider Breuner Airfield an airport or otherwise allow it to be included. When I had to stop short of the three-revert rule, I asked for help from admins and got some. One admin reverted the categorization and listing calling it "absurd". Another noticed the inevitable conclusion that Breuner Airfield doesn't have significant independent refs, and did a prod and then AfD nom. That discussion is in progress at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Breuner Airfield. The AfD is turning up a surprising number of keep votes. Though one of them also posted on the author's talk page, "I've got your back." So it appears there may be canvassing for keep votes. Personally, I looked for significant independent refs, and would have added them if I had found any - I don't believe they exist. Even if notability as an article is determined, it just isn't even applicable and certainly not notable as an airport. But the author is trying to portray the categorization of the field as an airport as a him-vs-me issue. So to solve that, this needs to be more than just me. He outright ignores my advice, including that without an ICAO, IATA or FAA code it doesn't meet criteria to be considered an airport. And he again starts the same assertion on a another talk page somewhere each day or so. Ikluft (talk) 04:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

As expected, there was more on scattered talk pages today. This time they were suggestions on two category talk pages asking to change the definition of the categories to not require an ICAO, IATA or FAA code in order to consider it an airport. How low do you want this to go? It needs responses from more than just me. See Category talk:Airports in the United States by state and Category talk:Airports in California. He's doing this because he was told in Category talk:Airports in the San Francisco Bay Area that the standard for an airport (requiring an ICAO, IATA and/or FAA code) comes from the parent and grandparent categories. Ikluft (talk) 05:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Call them by what they are Category:Model airplane fields. They are not airports. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to be helping. The author continued forum shopping today with a post on Talk:List of private-use airports in California. I posted a response there to make sure he can't claim no objections - but more objections would help. He also reverted my revert of his addition of the RC model club field to List of private-use airports in California. I can use others' help with that because he seems bent on an edit war again. Ikluft (talk) 23:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I listed the talk pages that were used so far in a warning note on the user's talk page: User_talk:Myheartinchile#Forum-shopping_for_miscategorizing_Breuner_Airfield_as_an_airport. He left this response on my talk page: User_talk:Ikluft#Forum-shopping_for_miscategorizing_Breuner_Airfield_as_an_airport. So it seems he has no intention of cooperating. Unless someone can help defuse this, I'll probably have no choice but to ask for help from admins again soon. Ikluft (talk) 02:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The article's AfD ended in delete so that hopefully closes the matter. Ikluft (talk) 22:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

London City planning issues

Third (or fourth) opinion appreciated: Talk:London City Airport#Planning controversy. Thanks/wangi (talk) 19:03, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Since the POV pushing appears to be from anon accounts, I semi protected it for 10 days. If the article is cleaned up before then, I can remove the protection early. This should allow time to correctly source and cleanup the article to meet WP:RS and WP:NPOV. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

O'Hare International Airport

Someone is adding allegedly new EK and LA flights to O'Hare International Airport, without providing the sources. I've already reverted the article twice, so I am not doing it again, but can somebody confirm these "new" flights? Or if they are non-existent, can somebody watch this article as well? Cheers. Elektrik Blue (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. Note also left on anon-user's talk page. Ikluft (talk) 22:26, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Airport notability guideline

I've yet to get through the archives, but I'm wondering if there has ever been any discussion on Notability, and how it relates to airports. A question was posted at the aviation style guide here, and because nothing is yet written out in the (still in its infancy) Aviation Style Guide/MoS, I'd like to get on this. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 17:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, whatever happened with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (airports)? What is the current practice for naming airport articles? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 18:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I think there's something a bit wrong with naming practices. Who ever refers to Heathrow and Gatwick as 'London Heathrow Airport' and 'London Gatwick Airport' and to Newark as 'Newark Liberty International Airport'. Though I've generally believed the official name of an article should reflect the official name of the noun the article is about, it seems that per WP:NAME an article should be named to reflect 'common' usage. NcSchu(Talk) 18:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
If one may read past talk histories, its apparent that Airport articles has been bucking the trend and using only official names. There are pros and cons for doing this, but may I also remind that common usage naming is not a binding requirement, and can be ignored in specific cases, arguably such as this one.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that this topic did get picked up again later. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/Notability (talk). Ikluft (talk) 16:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Oregon Airports

A while back I went through a started stubs for every airport in Oregon. Public and Private. I have a user now going about an tagging the articles for proposed deletions. I am just curious of a concensus of this project of keeping these. To me it makes no sense to go through and create red-links after a seed has been placed for each field to be expanded on. Thoughts?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Trashbag (talkcontribs)

The question of notability of Airports has come up multiple times, which is why I think it would be a good idea or formally adopt some guidelines, and have them written out on the project page and at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide. Someone needs to look over the archives, see what has been discussed so far, and write a proposed guideline to discuss. I've got several project on the go right now so I can't get too involved, but I'm going to remove the prod messages from those pages and link to this discussion. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Regardless of your consensus here, all articles must abide by notability standards. If the place is not covered in independent sources, then it is non notable. Private heliports, unless covered in another source, and that means something other than a site listing their airport code and FAA listing, are non notable. Undeath (talk) 01:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, hate to break it to you Undead but the FAA is the source for airport information. Please see previous discussions at the Bruce's Airport Talk Page. You have no argument from me that when I originally whipped up these as a newby I did not list that as the source and it should be cited. But, the FAA form 5010 is the source for everyone on airport data. --Trashbag (talk) 12:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Question Wouldn't it be "the source" in the US only? What about airports outside the US?--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:35, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI: the notability topic did get picked up again later. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/Notability (talk). Ikluft (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Cargo Services

User:Spikydan1 added scheduled destinations to a list of cargo carriers at Newark Liberty International Airport. I removed these because there was no source given for the information and again because the source stated by User:Spikydan1 was that he monitored the Port Authority's Flight View System. Because the 'source' was not a published, reliable source for getting scheduled flights for cargo carriers and that it bordered on original research as User:Spikydan1 himself retrieved information from watching the flight view I thought this violated both WP:RS and WP:OR. I'm just wondering what other people think about this in case the user decides to add it again. NcSchu(Talk) 15:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Try to politely take the discussion to the talk page. Yes, so far it looks like original research. Maybe the existence of the info can lead to finding a reliable source. Or maybe not. But it won't happen in I'm-reverting-it-no-I'm-adding-it-back on edit comments. There isn't enough to have a discussion there. Try to help the newcomer feel included in the discussion whatever its outcome. Ikluft (talk) 15:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's wise anyway to include cargo destinations as they are so fluid. What routes they fly, where they stopover, whether they carry the same flight number back to their base/hub are hard to track. If a particular airline's schedule isn't fluid, it's probably already published in paper (i.e. no "OR" necessary). I think throughout the whole project we should only include the airlines but not destinations. HkCaGu (talk) 16:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

merged Kingman Airport and Industrial Park into Kingman Airport (Arizona)

This may be good for a laugh... I found the articles Kingman Airport (Arizona) (created 2005, emphasis on current airport status) and Kingman Airport and Industrial Park (created 2006, emphasis on WWII airfield history) both referred to the same airport, KIGM. I merged the pages into Kingman Airport (Arizona). Ikluft (talk) 18:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

On a more serious note, there may be more of these to watch for... articles about former WWII air bases and containing content about the current airport, possibly unaware that an article exists for the current airport. I looked around and easily found another one of these waiting to happen... the WWII air bases list for Arizona had a redlink for Falcon Field Airport which I made a redirect to Falcon Field (Arizona), an article which has been around since 2006. There may be more. Ikluft (talk) 18:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Seems like a some WWII stuff has been added for AAF fields and they reference the new airport names. If the editor did not check out the names for any red links to the current airport names, we could have duplicate articles created. This probably need to be checked out. {{USAAF Training Bases World War II}} may be a navbox that gets you to all of these by state. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ Incident database for AGA on AviationSafety.net, visited June 21 2008