Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airlines/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Criticism of Ryanair

New article has been created Criticism of Ryanair - must get an award for not being NPOV and that is just the title! MilborneOne 19:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It is nice to finally get rid of that lengthy criticism on Ryanair. Marcusmax 22:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Still, we should try to make it as NPOV as possible - if the basis is inherently flawed, move the appropriate content back to Ryanair, redirect, and Singapore cane anyone who tries to insert non-notable rants :) WhisperToMe 01:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Airline destinations

I'm just curious but how should we list the destinations of regional airlines, like NW Airlink for example? Should we list them in an article named Northwest Airlink destinations then separate it by the destinations served by the different regional carriers, or list them in the carrier operating for the airline? -chris^_^ 05:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

anybody?-chris^_^ 04:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I would be inclined that destinations of all airlines, regardless of whether they be regional or whatever, should only be listed in the article concerning the actual airline operating the service. --Russavia 13:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Tables with flight numbers by destination

Since certain users persist in arguing semantics and preventing any sort of consensus from being reached, I'm going to force us all to repeat our statements above in a a way that hopefully is completely unambiguous. Question Number 1: Should articles include tables listing flight numbers by destination? -- Hawaiian717 16:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

  • No. This information adds little value to the article. It does not give any indication as to the size of an airline's presence in a market, as numbers can be skipped and flight numbers can operate multiple segments in different markets. -- Hawaiian717 16:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Inidication of market size was not the sole reasoning for content inclusion. Further, it is dismissive to suggest that there is absolutely no indication whatsover in this regard. Simply put, it works better for some airlines than it does for others, and enforces the fact that attempting to regulate this information here dosent allow this flexibility for specific carriers.--Huaiwei 22:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No. as per Hawaiian717. MilborneOne 16:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No. As below, no, I do not support specifying within this WikiProject the inclusion or exclusion of flight number tables in all airline articles. The onus should be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine if these are encyclopedic in specific articles, such as when specific airlines accord greater significance to their flight numbers than normal.--Huaiwei 17:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment. Could you perhaps provide an example justification for what would make these flight number lists encyclopedic for a particular airline (or point me to one that's already written somewhere -- I just don't have the time to go looking for one at the moment)? If we can see why these could be notable it would better help us to understand your viewpoint. Otherwise, it seems to me like you're saying "no you're wrong" without telling us why, which isn't likely to change anyone's viewpoint. -- Hawaiian717 05:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No As per everything written above by myself, and as per Hawaiian717. They do not belong on any article. --Russavia 19:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Other than the comments you have supposedly provided prior, do you have any answer to the other stated reasons for content inclusion? I have noticed that users like yourself simply harp on that single weakest point, while convenienctly skims around and largely ignores the rest.--Huaiwei 22:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment And you have yet to provide a reason as to why these flight numbers are encyclopaedic. The only place you see these flight number ranges are in airline timetables, and they form part of the "How to" (decoding) of the timetable. They don't explain anything about how much importance an airline places on a particular market, it merely shows people where they fly to. And the actual destination list and map does this already. Also, if you are certain that flight numbers do indicate this, remember you will need to show us this, and there is no original research allowed. --Russavia 07:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
        • If you have basis to charge any current content with original research, bring it on. The article itself dosent even blatantly make any such claim on "market size". As for the supposed claim that I failed to provide other reasons, you must have been pretty selective in missing out on my lengthy comments on just how selective and superstitious SIA can be with its flight numbers. And this phenomena is not exactly my imaginative thinking. See [1] and [2] for some global examples. So instead of harping endlessly on "market size estimation", perhaps you could comment on other aspects for a change, especially considering the fact that I am not exactly citing "market size estimation" as the main and only reason to keep that content anyway?--Huaiwei 16:54, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
          • Interesting articles, but in terms of this discussion, even then the most you could do with it in WP is to add trivial sections to articles, or produce a list of so called notable flight numbers, which would duly be put up for Afd at some stage. Additionally, you have mentioned that the inclusion of these flight numbers is not some market size estimation, but you haven't mentioned exactly what they are supposed to explain? You have said previously that it is no surprise that flights to China have 8** flight number ranges, and it is no surprise that the flight number ranges begin with flights to North America; having flight numbers in the 8** range is nothing unique to SIA, and is based entirely on the superstitions of Chinese and is nothing but marketing; and just what exactly does the North American flight number range portray; we are not here to do the job of Singapore Airlines Public Affairs (aka Marketing); but to provide notable encyclopaedic material in an encyclopaedic manner, and there has been no firm reason for their inclusion, but plenty for their exclusion. --Russavia 22:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
            • You found them interesting? Funny, for considering your expertise in the field, you should not have found those informsation surprising at all. You are jumping the gun yet again. Is there a desire to create trivial sections? Is there an article on notable flight numbers? Zlich. This is a small table within a large article, telling users nothing more than the flight number patterns used by the airline in a very factual, objective way. It is up to the user to interpret the patterns behind some of the selections, although some are pretty obvious. The two examples I cited above are one such interpretation, but currently do not appear in the article, so from where are you insisting that this section is a victim of marketing as a basis for deletion? As per previous concluded discussions: Display the flight number ranges, and let the reader see the pattern themselves. Interpretations of these numbers will be included as and when verifiable sources exist. It is not a requirement for the interpretations to exist before the flight numbers. And so what if any number range is a result of marketing? Shall we drop the names of all airlines, and give a generic article name for all of them, since all airline names are the result of marketing as well? Quite duh comments coming out of these discussions lately, especially from those who are just desperate to salvage their personal ego!--Huaiwei 01:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No As per above statements. The flight numbers provide no valuable information to the reader in analyzing airline destinations. Relevant flight numbers can be mentioned in the article such as BA001 for Concorde, etc. but just general lists do nothing for anyone. NcSchu(Talk) 17:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No There is no necessary connection between a flight number and a particular destination. Flight numbers are ephemeral. Flight numbers are set by the operator's marketing department for marketing purposes and are changed for marketing purposes. Airlines change destinations as demand varies and the flight numbers change as a result. There is a tendency to pack WP articles with information of dubious value and accuracy, this devalues WP as a resource. Why would one look in WP for the flight number associated with a destination or vv? For accurate information on the matter the source must be the operator. Any such information taken from WP cannot be trusted until it has been verified by reference to the operator if it is to be used for any significant purpose, so including it in WP is pointless. treesmill 08:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Aircraft tail numbers in fleet tables

Since certain users persist in arguing semantics and preventing any sort of consensus from being reached, I'm going to force us all to repeat our statements above in a a way that hopefully is completely unambiguous. Question Number 2: Should the fleet tables in articles include individual aircraft tail numbers? -- Hawaiian717 16:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

  • No. This is not encyclopedic, and means duplicating the effort done by others at sites such as airlinerlist.com. This also becomes impractical and would consume a large amount of space for large airlines with several hundred aircraft. -- Hawaiian717 16:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No. On the assumption that the tail number is the same as the registration! If on the very rare occasion that an aircraft is notable it should not be included in the fleet table but elsewhere in the article, in accident and incidents for example. MilborneOne 16:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No. Oh yes I am voting a no. I do not advocate adding aircraft tail numbers to every fleet table. I advocate adding them only when neccesary, such as when the need arises to establish factual accuracy in potentially confusing situations. My recommended action as far as this WikiProject is concerned is not to specify the inclusion, nor the exclusion, of this field. Let individual contributors decide what is appriopriate for them.--Huaiwei 17:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No As per everything written by myself above, and as per Hawaiian717 and MilborneOne. This is squarely within the scope of this project, this project is better placed than any other to stipulate what should and shouldn't belong, and these lists need to go, and provide EL's instead. --Russavia 19:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment. Kindly be aware that I am not disputing the scope of this wikiproject. I am questioning the wisdom of attempting to regulate and enforce the inclusion or exclusion of this one information. That is a major difference, which you appear not to appreciate.--Huaiwei 22:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No unless the tail numbers provide some kind of benefit to the reader. For example, Virgin Atlantic Airways has a relatively small fleet and each registration along with the aircraft's nickname makes the airline unusual and "special" in that regard so they should remain. However if there's no relevance behind the tail numbers/registration numbers then I see no reason to include them. NcSchu(Talk) 17:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment If I catch that comment correctly, I note an allowance given for exceptions, just as several others have indicated, including myself. I am thus wondering just how is this WikiProject going to include a "ruling" which is going to allow exceptions, since there will be some interesting individuals who will take that structure literally and get all upset in their attempts to enforce it to the last alphabet across wikipedia.--Huaiwei 16:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment The exceptions must be for aircraft that meet notablity requirements - which does not include Virgin Atlantic aircraft. Naming aircraft and using registrations that could imply some meaning is not new or restricted to Virgin and is not notable. So you are right Huaiwei we need to make sure that exceptions if any follow some laid down guidance. MilborneOne 20:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment I tend to agree with you here Milborne, even Virgin Atlantic's naming of aircraft is not notable, Qantas does it, KLM does it, this airline does it and that airline does it. Naming an aircraft is nothing unique, and really is not all that notable; e.g. how many reputable sources go into deep discussion on G-VFAB "Lady Penelope" or VH-OJQ "City of Mandurah"? I would be saying next to none. --Russavia 22:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment See my comment below. Aruging over the notability of an individual nickname, versus arguing over the notability of an airline's practice in christianing each of its aircraft. Which is far more prudent, relevant and productive here? Further more, you do not need to be unique to be notable, else we would be stripping all airline articles to nothing but whatever is unique to them. Notability can be increased when a big deal is made over those names, the same critierion applied to any information in wikipedia. This is plain basics with a dose of common sense. Last but not least, I think some individuals clearly need to get over their tendency in taking sides in issues not by objective judgement, but by their impressions on individual editors.--Huaiwei 01:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment As a guideline, not as a hard rule. Notability criteria should apply and be identified in article. Suggest: Any accident, major incident, aviation record, enduring association with notable person/office, first/last of type, etc. Default to admit tail numbers on fleets of less than (say) ten aircraft. While not perfectly stable, tail numbers provide the visible linkage between photos and individual a/c enduring identity (msn) via registration data. This is very useful in poorly regulated environments.21:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeadSongDog (talk • contribs)
    • Comment I would support this, with reservations about default for less than 10 aircraft, as if we use notability to warrant inclusion, it seems a bit discriminatory to exclude airlines with 11 aircraft, which will then only see people including 11-aircraft fleet info, which will see the 12-aircraft fleet crowd then including those fleets, which then makes the 100-aircraft fleet crowd include theirs as if the 10-aircraft crowd can include theirs, what makes them so special over an airline with 100 or 200 aircraft? --Russavia 22:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Choosing a number below which something is deemed notable is arbitrary and should be avoided. The exception is when the number itself establishes notability. This is clearly not the case in tables. Vegaswikian 00:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
      • It is odd that we have reached a stage where notability in individual fields or entries in a table is now being debated on, instead of notability of the entire table, or articles in general. Are we going to go down to debating the notability of individual numbers of characters next? It is obvious that when one chooses to zoom into micro levels, each individual entry is going to be less notable. Zoom out from this microscoping view, and the entire table starts to make sense as a whole. If you are going to argue the notability of individual registration numbers, then I suppose we are going to end up with fleet tables showing only those numbers? Quite silly, isnt it? The comment made by LeadSongDog makes lots of sense. Even our current destination lists are determined by the following "Once an airline has more then 10 destinations, especially international ones, they could be listed in a stand alone article.". Btw, why do you not go debate over the notability of individual destinations and airports and start striking them off destination lists? Can simple common sense take its rightful place here?--Huaiwei 01:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment Sorry Huaiwei but we are not discussing notability of individual registrations or even letters within them - but this discussion/consensus is about Should the fleet tables in articles include individual aircraft tail numbers. If you read the previous posts then a consensus has been reached on that we should not include them, LeadSongDog has made a sensible suggestion if they are exceptions to inclusion and we are close to agreeing them. So common sense as Huaiwei requests is to agree a guideline for exception update the project guides and then move on. MilborneOne 09:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment I certainly hope we are not going to degenerate discussion to that extent, but it is plain clear that many users here seem to be debating over the notability of individual registration numbers in any circumstance, instead of a column in a fleet list which may only show number ranges instead of individual numbers (as the existing table in the SIA article demonstrates, for example). Anyway, its great that at least exceptions are being discussed now, the very window of flexibility I have been championing for. My only concern is in the wording of any new guidline, if we agree to accomodate exceptions. From past experience, there will be a few individuals who are going to demand for "strict and absolute adherence to wikiproject guidelines" down to the last letter, despite the fact that these are mere guidelines, and exceptions can be accomodated. This has obviously stiffled the entire wikiproject, whether existing members here wish to admit this or not. Are we going to allow this wikiproject to proceed further down the path of over-regulation?--Huaiwei 15:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Consensus to not include tail numbers and flight numbers

Should the same apply to the flight number sections? How about the tail numbers for all of the aircraft? Vegaswikian 20:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment This should be in another concensus, but I would say yes to both (i.e. not belong). --Russavia 06:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I agree that neither flight numbers nor tail numbers should be included. -- Hawaiian717 15:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Tail numbers matter in the unusual cases where the a/c has notable history (accidents and incidents, state visits, first of type, longest/fastest/first flight records, etc. For just another production tail number I would support.LeadSongDog 15:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support For flight numbers I have seen the reasoning that it gives an indication as to the market share of an airline. Looking at Singapore Airlines, the airline uses SQ300-SQ399 for flights to Europe. How does the existence of these flight numbers show what their market share is? Frankly, it can't, and it doesn't. All this tells us is that SQ potentially has 50 return flights to Europe - this could be 50 daily flights, 50 weekly flights, 50 flights 3 days per week, 50 flights once a fortnight (Aeroflot back in the day used to service many African destinations once a fortnight, so it is not out of the realms of possibility that SQ could do the same). The other reason you can't use this to determine any market share is that one doesn't know how many other airlines are flying the Singapore-Europe route (there are plenty of course). In regards to aircraft registrations, support as per LeadSongDog. --Russavia 17:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Once again, to which section is this survey attempting to vote on?--Huaiwei 18:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    • This is trying to determine if there is consensus on not on including tail number and flight number lists in airline articles. It is a general question. Vegaswikian 02:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
      • And what is the intention of this "general question"? Is the result going to detemine an amendment to the existing WikiProject guideline? Considering past histories of debates elsewhere, is it intended to be a weapon against particular sections in specific articles, since its "general" scope can theoratically apply anywhere in any context?--Huaiwei 04:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Sometimes it is better to discuss actions before taking them. SIA is not the only article with sections like these. There are others. No one is out to get SIA that I know of. Discussing changes that affect multiple articles is a good way to determine consensus. In cases where you expect an edit war might erupt, determining consensus first is always the wiser choice. Vegaswikian 04:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
          • It is not just sometimes, but always, especially when it is an old disupte being stirred up yet again. I am not taking issue with you discussing this first. I take issue with the way this survey is being conducted. Just look at the above section, where you merely asked if codeshared destinations should be included without saying where. Plenty of responses end up assuming you are asking if codeshared destinations should appear together with destination lists actually operated. See what happens once I step in and distinguish between codeshare destinations appearing in different sections or articles. Despite what happened, you still resist in being specific in this section. Could you account for this rather odd behavior?--Huaiwei 05:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support the example above regarding the current range of flight numbers that SQ use for international flight indicates how many flights they could potential fly is precisely why listing them in articles does not hold water. The range can be changed at any time. Airlines can, and do, change there flight number ranges. Flight numbers have no enclycopedic place in the articles. As regards Fin # // Tail # they should only be included if they are exceptionally notable. --Stewart (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment And to comment here firsthand also. This vote is on...flight numbers and tail numbers at the same time? Has readers here considered past debates on why these information are kept? Or are they simply picking on the worse keep reasons given, without flashing out the full debate? The claim that those flight numbers alone are supposed to indicate market share is one of the most flimsy reasons given. I made comments such as "to give the viewer a rough idea of the airline's market coverage and a apprioximation on the relative sizes of each, to supplement the information in the destinations list." If anyone of you actually think this equals using that table alone to determine precise market share, then you have got to be deeply mistaken. And just what is this problem with tail numbers, and in which section are they planned to be removed from? I find that I can't even comment on this, because it is fantastically vague!--Huaiwei 18:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Tail numbers are probably notable on the Frontier Airlines aircraft since each is a unique piece of artwork. Beyond that, tail numbers do not appear to add encyclopedic information. Vegaswikian 22:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
      • You are still not answering the question clearly. There are tail numbers in multiple parts of Singapore Airlines and Singapore Airlines fleet, for example. Kindly tell us whether this vote is supposed to be applied to all instances where tail numbers appear in any form.--Huaiwei 17:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm sorry that you are having a problem with this simple question. As to Singapore Airlines and Singapore Airlines fleet which you seem to be concerned with, if the consensus is to not include tail numbers and flight numbers as sections or lists in articles, those articles would be edited the same as any other articles with similar information. In simple English, those two articles would not be treated any different. Vegaswikian 02:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
          • I am equally apologetic if you possess limited ability in appreciating the fact that the same information can be useful in one context, and totally irrelevant in another. A block vote attempting to remove all instances of a specific information is a highly ridiculous exercise to say the least. Going by the direction of the above vote, shall we rename all accident article titles with something else, for example, and forbid any kind of mention of any flight number? I think I am appealing for the prevalance of basic logic now. Kindly consider and reflect on this before pushing forward a highly general vote with seemingly little cognitive process behind it.--Huaiwei 04:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
            • Huaiwei, you're the only one arguing semantics. It's obvious you think that we should include lists of flight numbers and how they correspond to destinations and itemize each individual tail number in the fleet tables, which is what this is about, and seemed clear to me from the beginning. It also looks like you're in the minority on this. Nobody said we should rename all the accident articles to remove flight numbers. That's stupid and you know it. -- Hawaiian717 04:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
              • It dosent really matter if I am the minority or not. As I said, simple logic prevails in the end. If this "concensus building" process is oddly executed, I will make it quite clear, and it shows. At the very least, you acknowledge how stupid it would be if this "concensus" is actually applied. As for your assumption about my viewpoint, you are not entirely correct. I would justify the inclusion of tail numbers in specific circumstances, in particular when the article is discussing an incident affecting a particular aircraft (not just in accidents. Even the tail number of SIA's first A380 was mentioned in the press). I do not see an issue with photograph captions including mention on the specific aircraft tail number depicted in the picture. And if one refers to the fleet table in Singapore Airlines, it has been long explained that they are included because of the different designations the airline has given to its Boeing 777-212ERs, such that some use derated engines and are called "777-212"s, even thou they are actually ER frames. The only way to distinguish them is by tailnumber (9V-SQ* for derated three-class, 9V-SR* for derated two-class, and 9V-SV* for normal two-class). In all these cases, tail numbers are included for technical accuracy reasons, despite being obviously non-notable in itself. They serve for accurate identification, and this should apply in all instances where such accuracy is warranted, and not included just for the sake of it.--Huaiwei 05:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
              • I not sure that the example of using tail numbers to denote sub-variants of SIA 777s is a good example as I suspect that level of detail is probably not encyclopedic, this is not a detailed technical manual. Also remember that discussion on this page is about the whole airlines project, it seems be end up with detailed discussion about SIA which is only one out of many articles we are trying to improve and support. MilborneOne 09:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
                • Wikipedia is by no means a publication meant for the clueless masses. It is, first and foremost, an encyclopedia, and an encyclopedia is not going to be reserved about providing technical data for the purpose of factual accuracy. Identifying individual airframes by type is by no means a dublication of a detailed technical manual. This is jumping the gun much too far. Tail numbers are hardly "technical jargon" - they are neccesary information to correctly identify individual airframes, such as those depicted in individual photographs. Wikipedia is here to tell people what tail numbers are. It is not a reflection of the level of technical expertise amongst the general travelling public. Kindly keep in mind that we are writting an encyclopedia, not a travel guidebook.--Huaiwei 15:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
                  • And exactly is a 'tail number'? It is nothing more than a car licence plate. Nothing more, nothing less. Whilst we might be able to do an article on aircraft registrations (i.e. what they mean, etc), we are not a guide for aircraft spotters so that they can gather lists of aircraft registrations, there are other avenues for that. It is clearly against the spirit of WP:NOT --Russavia 07:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
                    • If an aircraft registration number can be compared with the registration number of a car in terms of notability, could you explain the apparant lack of wikipedia articles on nothing but a single car involved in an accident? That's a rather lame attempt in playing down the notability of the aviation industry.--Huaiwei 16:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
                      • Lame? I think not, for I provide you with Death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Does the fact that this accident occurred in a hire car (licence plate mentioned in article) mean that the fleet of this rental firm is all of a sudden so notable that its entire fleet be listed on wikipedia inclusive of registration numbers, previous owner, who the rental company disposed of the car to, what cylinder engine the car had, etc? Of course it doesn't, and the same goes for airlines. The only reason airline crashes garner more attention is for the SENSATIONALIST aspect in the media --Russavia 21:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
                        • Gosh, you just manged to cite a lame argument to support a lame exercise. My heartiest congratulations. Now let's just compare the example you cite, with that of the majority of aircraft accident articles. The article on the Death of Diana, Princess of Wales is notable, for the simple fact that it is about the death of a notable individual. How she died is less irrelevant. Her death is the primary reason for notability. She could very well die a natural, uneventful death in bed, and you are still going to get headlines. A typical Aviation accidents and incidents page, in contrast, is notable due to the accident in itself. You do not need notable individuals on board the flight to establish notability. We have countless articles on individual aircraft accidents, many of them pretty routine, without needing Princess Diana on the plane. Why do you not have countless articles on individual cars involved in routine accidents? You answered your own question in part, but that is good enough. Media sensationalism is a critical aspect to establish notability. The media repeatedly chants 9V-SKA in the past few days. Why do they not chant the car plate number of the first ground-breaking car model? So the next time you want to cite a lame example, kindly think through it first. You do not need a doctorate to tell that an individual aircraft is generally far more notable than an individual car, ceteris paribus.--Huaiwei 02:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
                          • Personal attacks aside, I would like to address your claim of the media repeatedly chanting 9V-SKA in the past few days. Can you tell us where this repeated chanting has occurred, because it most certainly has not been online, as a search of Google News and Google main search clearly shows. Is this a case of the media getting lost in all of the hype and forgetting to mention the registration, or is it the more likely case of the registration being of absolutely ZERO importance to anyone but an aircraft spotter. --Russavia 06:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Prime example from the news today. The Singapore Airlines article states that SQ300-SQ399 are for flights to Europe. Now either one of three things has happened, Sydney has been transplanted magically from Australia to Europe overnight, or the department responsible for flight numbers is geographically challenged, or flight numbers follow no particular standard and can be changed at a whim (especially when marketing is concerned), as I seem to recall that the inaugural flight of the A380 to SYD today had the flight number SQ380. --Russavia 13:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment If Russavia has problems telling a special flight number for a one-off commemorative flight apart from that of regular scheduled flights, then I suppose there arent many who can help him. I suppose it must have taken him several decades just to find one exception to the rule!--Huaiwei 16:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment I have no problem in determining it is a flight number used for marketing, but it throws the complete legitimacy and the stated reasons for keeping the list of flight numbers into question. --Russavia 21:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I will keep this simple, support not including flight numbers or tailnumbers in any airline article unless any are notable in their own right. MilborneOne 19:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Are we able to say that this has now been adequately discussed and concensus has been reached that not to include this information in articles? --Russavia 13:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Concensus has already been reached several times over to keep the flight number table in the Singapore Airlines article. That concensus shall prevail over the discussion here, just as it shall prevail in any other airline article which manage to justify their inclusion.--Huaiwei 16:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment First off, can you please provide a link to this concensus? The only link to any discussions can be found here and here. It does not seem to me that any concensus at all was reached, and in fact the compromise offer was completely ignored. Secondly, you should be aware that concensus can change, and that any concensus reached on an article page with limited input from the community most certainly be 'over-ridden' by any concensus reached on a wider input from the community. --Russavia 21:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment Thanks for providing the links yourself. Now of course I know concensus can change. But read what it says: This does not mean that Wikipedia ignores precedent. A precedent usually has reasons too, which may still be valid. There is a distinction between unresolved good-faith concerns over a reasonable or policy related matter, and disruptively trying to enforce an individual view. An issue decided in the past can always be discussed again, especially if there is new information or a question of policy being breached. So the primary question to you here is this: is your current comment in good faith, or are you simply reharshing old arguments because you just cannot get your way? What circumstances has changed from the last discussion to this one? What new policy has been breached? It is for the simple reason of "sore losers" who refuse to accept previous concensus and continously disruptes wikipedia by bringing up the same old discussion again and again and again, that the Wikipedia:Deletion policy, for example, advices against this: "a certain amount of time should pass between repeated requests for deletion review, and these requests should be carefully considered in light of policy. Renominations that lack new arguments or new evidence are likely to be closed quickly". Both says exactly the same thing here: just what new arguments can you put up this time? None!--Huaiwei 02:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Do Not Support - from my reply to MilborneOne on Talk:KLM So we will rely on the rest ofthe internet to be the repository of history? In spite of the wealth of specialized websites out there, try digging up details more than 20 years old out there - this stuff 'dissappears' because everybody says 'let somebody else do the work'. I wasn't aware that we were limiting ourselves to a superficial view of things here. Bridesmill 23:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Are we running out of space here on wikipedia? If someone is willing to maintain (as for Singapore Airlines) then why dictate that we limit the data here? I would also based on the above question the comment "Nobody has got round to changing Singapore Airlines fleet. MilborneOne 21:50, 3 November 2007".Bridesmill 23:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Waiting for consensus to be established and have the project page updated before modifying articles is a sound reason to delay action. The issue is not how much space is in the article, but rather is the data encyclopedic. Vegaswikian 23:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Project Maintenance

There is now a new page, Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Maintenance, that lists backlogged areas needing work, articles not covered under the assessment, etc. It is automatically updated by a bot daily. If your looking for something to do, check it out. If there is anything that you would like to see covered, let me know. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Airline holding company fleet tables in airline articles

Should the individual airline articles be including the fleet tables for EVERY SINGLE AIRLINE that is part of the parent company? I think those fleet tables should only be included in List of Airline Holding Companies. For example, I don't see why it's relevant to list the fleet of ATA Airlines in an article about North American Airlines just because they're a part of the same parent company (in this case, Global Aero Logistics. Without a doubt the tables should be included in the parent company articles, but I don't think they should be included in articles about another airline. Any comments? Sox23 22:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Actually, I don't think airline holding company articles need fleet information at all, but if you're going to do it that would be the place. The individual subsidiary airlines provide specific information, and readers who need combined information can aggregate the information themselves. Providing a combined table increases the workload of maintaining the lists and increases the possibility of inconsistency. I still think List of Airline Holding Companies needs to just go away, but that's for its AfD to reach consensus on. -- Hawaiian717 00:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you 100% Sox23 02:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I'm opposed to keeping multiple copies of information since it becomes difficult to maintain. Fleet tables should only be located in the article of the airline that actually operates them. If we need to make a note on the project page, then lets do it. Vegaswikian 04:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Agree as per Vegaswikian. MilborneOne 20:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Anyone else want to chime in to see if there is any consensus? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability

It has long rankled me that pages in Category:Airline_destinations which I visit commonly contain incorrect, outdated, and/or unsupported information. Is it the position of WikiProject Airlines that these articles are exempt from WP's verifiability policy?

Examples:

-- Boracay Bill 00:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

We obviously want the information to be correct, it's just very difficult for all destination articles like these to be constantly watched. I myself only monitor a small number of such destination articles and only ones that I feel safe editing. NcSchu(Talk) 01:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess most of us figure that these are implicitly verifiable through the airline's web site, or some other material from the airline (timetable, route map) to define destinations. Sourcing new destinations typically isn't hard as there is often media reports surrounding the announcement and/or commencement of new service. Where we run into problems is when an airline ends service to a destination, as typically airlines don't publicize it much so it may slip by our notice for a while. -- Hawaiian717 06:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
True. However based on AfD discussions, we might need to start referencing each of the destinations. Since the sources will vary over time, we probably need to have a reference for each one. The other option is to provide one source for the airline, like the web site, and then only add specific references when the source is not the web site. Putting the source on each destination would make the need clearer for editors but would add a bunch of references. This does not affect these articles but also the airport ones. See this for a partial example in an airport article. Vegaswikian 07:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I think having too many footnote references in a paragraph hurts readability. In that case it actually doesn't seem to bad (but a bit overwhelming to see the same one over and over, though the number 7 does seem rather appropriate for LAS). I have found that when many footnote references are added in the middle of a paragraph of text it does get harder to read, thus when I'm writing I'll tend to put all of the references for that paragraph at the end of the paragraph -- or at least at the end of a sentence. I like the idea of having one or more "global" reference at the end of an article (probably a link to an airline's route map, destination list, or timetable on their web site), and supplementing that with additional references for specific destinations where necessary (in particular I suspect we'll need this for new/upcoming destinations, where we'd need to link to a press release or media report). I think the same works for airport articles -- most airports seem to have a list of carriers serving their airport and we'd link to that as the primary global reference, with new services needing supplemental links to a press release or media report. -- Hawaiian717 16:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Another issue in doing this is that each verification can be on a different date. As a result, not everything would be using the same reference since you would need a new named cite if you do this on different days. Another issue is the problem that this causes for editing. With the reference tags, even though they are the short form, it is next to impossible to find the cities when editing. Tagging the airline with the reference is not an option since it would imply that all of the destinations were verified on that date. Not sure that would be a good assumption to make. -- Vegaswikian (talk) 22:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused. I'm not sure if you're advocating for or against the model used on the LAS article, but as I think about it, I think it would be okay after all. Since people generally wouldn't be reading the destination lists the way they would a paragraph of text, I think it doesn't hurt readability too badly. I tried doing something for the Virgin America destinations to see what that might look like, and I think that's okay as well. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you really need a reference after every single one? It's the same reference for each one and I feel like if we just put it after "Virgin America currently flies to 5 destinations throughout the United States" in the opening that would be fine. NcSchu(Talk) 23:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

That was basically my previous thinking. I think the issue is what happens when they add more destinations. To be completely accurate, we'd need to recheck every destination (which we really should, but I'll get to that). That's easy with Virgin America and other airlines that fly to only a few destinations, and for that what you suggest I think is fine (I used VX for this demonstration specifically because they only fly to a few destinations so it would be quick for me to change). Not so much for, say, United Airlines destinations. By individually citing each destination, with each citation giving the retrieval date, we don't run into the issue of implying that each destination was verified the last time the list was updated. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
And you corrected the incorrect information, right? Vegaswikian 07:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
In some cases I did, but that led to edit wars and those wore me out. The Asian Spirit destinations page was WP:PRODed and deleted at one point, but reappeared with more unsupported information on it, some of which was either incorrect when added or quickly became incorrect as things changed in the real world. It's not just destinations & schedules (though wrong info there can cause problems for people who take WP at its word); there's unsupported (some of which is incorrect) info about facilities, hubs, "focus city" designations, etc. on some airline pages. -- Boracay Bill 08:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
While we're at it (rankling over assumed exemptions that is), how about [[WP:NOT#DIR|]]? If we must point to airline destination pages, at least we should provide a relevance date and stable version (e.g. via archive.org) -- LeadSongDog (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

WP should avoid including any information, airline destinations being a very good example, which is liable to rapid and unpredictable change and which is readily found elsewhere. Including such information reduces the value of WP as a source, because the unwary user may trust the information. The wary user will go to the horse's mouth, in this case the airline, for accurate and up-to-date information. WP should therefore include links to such sources and eliminate unreliable information. treesmill (talk) 01:30, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

We've been though this at least twice before in AfD discussions (here) (here). Destination lists aren't subject to rapid change, as airlines don't add or remove destinations all that often. New airlines will add new destinations relatively quickly as they grow, but larger airlines don't change all that much -- they are more likely to "connect the dots" and add new routes between two existing destinations than they are to add a completely new destination. These changes would affect airport articles, but not airline articles. Regardless, where an airline flies is an important part of identifying and describing an airline. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 02:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
That is simply wrong. British Airways, for example, changes destinations several times a year. As for 'where an airline flies' unless the airline has only two or three destinations its destinations are accurately described by such terms as 'US domestic', 'USA, Europe and the Middle East' or again with BA as an example, 'Worldwide'. The fact that BA operates to Charlotte NC does not in any way 'identify' BA. Can you explain why you want to include information which will be unreliable and which is readily available from other web sources? treesmill (talk) 10:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The same reason other information on WP is included, because it's relevant and provides useful information to an article. Now, yes, both of these things are sort of in the eye of the beholder, but because we feel they have value we want them included. The fact that the information updates frequently is irrelevant and so is the fact that information can supposedly be "easily available elsewhere", since a lot of information on this encyclopedia is in the same position and that's no reason to remove it from here. In fact I think that is a commonly used reason that hurts the encyclopedia as a whole, telling people who come here to find such information "Oh, sorry, you can easily find this elsewhere, so bugger off." I don't think that's the message we want to send. NcSchu(Talk) 18:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particularly fond of the verifiability going on in the McCarran International Airport article. All of those references are making the info look cluttered. If we're going to reference the destinations, then just have one or two after the destinations; like the model in Port Columbus International Airport. This way, the destinations are cited, and it doesn't make the information distracting. Any comments? Sox23 05:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Not all airports provide a single source of their direct destinations. This information does not support all of the information listed like the start and stop dates. There is the implied assumption that for each update of the referenced page, we are checking and verifying that all of the destinations are verified and still correct. One point that was made in the AfD discussions is that the length of the reference list is not a concern. A I said above, a singe reference for each airline would be OK if we can guarantee that it covers all of the information and that it is verified for all destinations on each update. If not it is not used to verify the data. I agree that fewer references would be better, but we also need to cover all bases to confirm that the data is verifiable from the source used. Each airport and airline can have different solutions. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I didn't mean that each airport has the info page that CMH has; just how the information is referenced; kind of like one big reference at the end of each set of destinations. So for example, instead of having a reference after each destination that US Airways serves from LAS, have all references (I know they probably won't be listed on one source, so just have like 2 or 3 or however many references needed) listed after the destination sections for each airline. Do you know what I mean? I don't understand why we need to have a reference after each and every destination listed as in the current LAS article. Basically what I'm saying is why not just put the reference(s) at the end? Sox23 20:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Works in theory, however it does not show the cite for each entry. So if you wind up with 5 citations, which one supports a specific city? My understanding is that if cites are going to be needed it must be by city or a broader area ONLY if we can say that each update of the source means that they contents of the entry were all verified. For small airports that may not be an issue. For the larger ones it clearly is. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I know but this whole citation idea has been brought up so randomly; I mean we've had destinations in articles before this and nobody has complained about references, so if we just reference info at the end, what's the big deal. The info is still better referenced than it is now, and it's been like how it is for a long time. And, shouldn't this be on WP:Airports? Sox23 03:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
We have two flavors of this. One for the airline destination lists and the other for the lists of destinations by airline in the airport articles. So a common approach for both would be a good outcome. Two discussions would not be an issue. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
As to the random occurrence, I think this is expected give the last AfD discussion on destination lists. For the short term, using a single reference source may be the correct starting point as a compromise. If there are no complaints, then we are fine. However if this is questioned as not sufficient or not meeting WP:V then we would probably need to ref each destination. In the airline lists, we would also need to reference the hubs and focus cities, in fact that may be a good idea from the start given some of the problems with the destination articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Infobox bullets

Inetpup and I were having a discussion that would end up in not reaching any consensus if it went on. The background of this situation is that Inetpup wants to add bullet points to the list of airports in the infobox (hubs and focus cities), but I disagree with the change, citing that it looked much uglier than it should. Comments? 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 21:51, 19 November 2007 (GMT)

  • As for me, I'd like to see bullets because a list of hubs is REALLY a list; and as with all lists, bullets are appropriate. This is especially true of long hub names; line wrapping causes ambiguity as to where the hub name begins and ends. The alternative would be to widen the infobox by another say 200 to 300 pixels so that no airport names wrap. The example I looked at was Continental Airlines and the look is elegant in my opinion. --Inetpup (talk) 22:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
    • You can just use {{nowrap}}. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 22:40, 19 November 2007 (GMT)
    • Another example of an infobox containing a list, equally long, with no bullets. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 22:42, 19 November 2007 (GMT)
      • The list you reference is in fact bulleted. The US Interstate images play the role of bullets. --Inetpup (talk) 22:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
        • No, route shields are not in front of every entry. Even more, there are multiple shields on one line. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 23:10, 19 November 2007 (GMT)
          • Both examples you have provided appear to have at least one route shield on each line. While it may have not been the original intention, the route shields do provide a secondary effect of serving the same purpose at a bullet. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Yea- I kinda like it. I don't really care though, the information will stay the same, it's just a matter of organizing it. Sox23 22:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Using the bullets actually means that you need more space on each line for the information. Using {{nowrap}} on a few entries will usually address most of the problem without using extra space and you can still determine the beginning of each airport without needing the bullet. Both techniques have advantages, I'd say use the one that wastes the least amount of space. I think that may be the {{nowrap}} solution. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I tried this solution on the AirTran Airways page: [3]. I have since reverted it because it is ugly and it feels like a hack and an override of the intent of the infobox format. --Inetpup (talk) 23:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
      • True, but using bullets wastes more space than just text. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 23:11, 19 November 2007 (GMT)
        • My problem with it is when users do things like set minimum font sizes on their browsers. I do in Firefox on my Mac at home because so many web pages like tiny fonts but I prefer to be able to read the pages. Thus, for some users, the infobox will get really wide because their fonts are bigger than what was intended by the infobox designers. This also means we'd have to {{nowrap}} everything. Given all this, I'd rather give up a little horizontal space and potentially make the infobox a bit longer, and use bullets. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
          • Hawaiian717, I can't agree with you more. Forcing unnatural formatting is very bad, especially when we are supposed to be browser neutral. Heck, someone could be reading this on my BlackBerry or even a Lynx (web browser). The user should have control over the appearance rather than us editors shoving it down their throats.--Inetpup (talk) 02:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
            • According to your logic, the Main Page and pretty much all of the portals would be squashed as well. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 03:25, 20 November 2007 (GMT)
        • I don't like usurping the original format and introduce a hack. The tag your propose is not widely used ... thus, it will be common for a non-expert author to omit the closing the tag with }} and cause text below it to render in a corrupt manner.--Inetpup (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • What impact does the logo_size parameter have on this? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Of course, {{nowrap}} ignores the logo_size parameter. It's a override. It's almost the same as replacing spaces with  .--Inetpup (talk) 22:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
      • What does an example of {{nowrap}} look like? Sox23 23:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
        • See my example on a previous history of AirTran: [4]. It's the one for BWI. --Inetpup (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
        • As far as bullets go I really have no preference, though I think it helps to de-clutter the space (so I guess that ends up being a preference, doesn't it?). But I don't agree with that {{nowrap}} business, I think it stretches the infobox too much, and I have a pretty big screen resolution so I can only imagine what it would look like for people with smaller ones. NcSchu(Talk) 03:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
          • Mine is also pretty big, and I have to agree that nowrapping the entire line is overkill. Perhaps just the first two words? 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 04:02, 20 November 2007 (GMT)
  • I agree with Inetpup that the bullet points will be a welcome addition aesthetically. Just look at American Airlines, where the word "Airport" seems to appear as a separate entry in its own line six times on my screen (which is a wide screen set to 1280 by 800 pixels. I am sure most users have narrower screens than this).--Huaiwei (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Google analytics shows the following screen visitor resolution breakdown for the past 30 days a website which I manage:
  1. 1024x768 53.06%
  2. 1280x1024 13.27%
  3. 1280x800 12.76%
  4. 1440x900 5.48%
  5. 800x600 3.57%
  6. 1152x864 3.19%
  7. 1280x960 2.17%
  8. 1280x768 1.66%
  9. 1680x1050 1.28%
  10. 1400x1050 1.15%

My guess is that WP sees a similar breakdown. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

    • Thanks, apparantly the statistics above supports my statement. 61.48% have screen resolutions which are smaller than mine! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Huaiwei (talk • contribs) 11:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
      • The only thing with screen resolutions is with 800 x 600. Pretty much every other res on normal monitors will render correctly. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 19:36, 21 November 2007 (GMT)
        • No this is not correct. I mentioned I am using 1280 by 800, and it dosent show up nicely. That's at least 61.48% + 12.76% who may be seeing the same thing.--Huaiwei (talk) 10:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
+1 bullets. --Matt (talk) 13:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Reason? This isn't a vote; they don't generate consensus. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 19:30, 21 November 2007 (GMT)
An endorsement, by an active editor, of one side or the other very much helps in consensus. If you really want reasons, it's cleaner than what was there, it's easier to read, and the html spec was built for unordered lists to use... <ul>. --Matt (talk) 13:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Rubbish! Mlaroche clearly stated a preference below as shown in [5] and he even voted! Now, why would you deny something so obvious? --Inetpup (talk) 09:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not even denying anything. It's just that voting is evil, and because of that, it should never be thought about. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 00:55, 24 November 2007 (GMT)

Tally

Agree (loves or likes bullets) - 6 editors
Disagree (hates or dislikes bullets) - 1 editor(s)
Didn't vote, didn't care, no objection, neutral or no preference - 2 editors
  • User:Vegaswikian - states pros and cons of both
  • Boracay Bill - no preference indicated, but added a thread to an assertion made by Huaiwei

--Inetpup (talk) 06:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Decision

The results seem pretty stable now. There was not a perfect consensus but this issue is resolved. Out of nine votes, 66.67% supported the bullets, 11.11% dissented, and 22.22% didn't care. Since the results are definitive enough, we should feel free to change the hubs into to the new format.--Inetpup (talk) 19:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

See also WP:PRACTICAL. This whole poll is ridiculous because of what is said at the aforementioned page. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 01:03, 24 November 2007 (GMT)

National Airlines/Private Jet Expeditions

Can someone take a look at National Airlines/Private Jet Expeditions? If this is real, it probably needs to be moved to article space from being a subpage. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deleted as an attack page. Is it worth still considering? IIRC this was a couple of different names for a relatively short-lived DC9 or MD80 operator. I'm pretty sure they were covered in one of the Deregulation Knockouts books; I can check later this week. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Regional Airline destinations

I'm planning to revise the destination layout on the destinations pages of the regional destinations such as Chautauqua Airlines destinations since the current layout takes up a lot of space. I'm suggesting to change the layout simillar with Oneworld destinations by placing the IATA code of the mainline carrier beside the destination. What do you guys think? -chris^_^ (talk) 09:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

anybody? -chris^_^ (talk) 02:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think its nuts to be putting something as volatile as airline scheds on wp manually until the airline goes defunct. If it's not an automatic update it doesn't belong at all, just link to a cache/mirror of the official sched. Format is secondary to trustworthy content. Still, if you're going to put these lists up, at least make them intelligible.LeadSongDog (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
That's a completely different discussion that has been had several times before at AfD. Let's not have it again here. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
It does have the potential to reduce duplication, but I'm not sure I like how the Oneworld destinations article handles hubs. Look at HKG for example. Why are CX, KA, and QF spelled out as hub/focus city airlines when IATA codes are used for everything else. And why is KA not listed with the other airline codes serving the airport? -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Click this for an example I already made for SkyWest destinations. It's approximately 14,019 bytes, compared to the current 22,769 bytes. -chris^_^ (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Not bad (as an aside, the current version of the SkyWest destinations page is atrocious, with the Delta Connection/Midwest Connect/United Express branding appearing in parenthesis at every heading level, I suppose to get around the problem of having the same heading title at multiple levels causes issues in MediaWiki). I'm still not sure how I like how the hubs are handled (UA twice on the same line for DEN, for example), but I'm not sure what else would be better. Hope you don't mind, I tried something a little different for the LAX line, putting the hub designation in with the list in parenthesis, but I'm not sure I like it better or that it's much clearer. I'm tempted to say something like "airline codes listed in bold have hubs at this destination" but that means people will have to look back at the legend to figure out what bold means. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe it would be much better to add a dash (-) between the code and hub or focus city. -chris^_^ (talk) 22:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
That looks reasonable. Not perfect as someone might think that MCI for example is a focus city for both DL and YX. The only way I can think that might avoid this confusion would be to put hub/focus cities first (so MCI would read (YX - Focus City, DL, UA)) but I don't know if that is really necessary. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
What if we would do it like this instead: (Kansas City International Airport) Focus City - YX (DL, UA), or, (DL, UA, YX [Focus City])? -chris^_^ (talk) 02:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
This info might (or might not) be relevant to this discussion -- just pointing it out in case it is relevant. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Not really, but it does list a few articles that have incorrect information. Vegaswikian (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Airport categories

Just noticed a user adding airport categories to US airlines for example Category:Stapleton International Airport to Continental Airlines. As this has a potential to add over 290 categories to this airline in particular and other US airlines had this been brought up for discussion anywhere? Is it a good idea? MilborneOne (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I don't think it is a good idea for many reasons. So the two categories I found have been nominated for deletion here and here. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Vegaswikian, these are unnecessary categories. Sox23 03:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

List of airports in the Philippines

List of airports in the Philippines appears to have a problem. Apparently in the Philippines, they commonly use the last 3 characters of the UN location codes to identify airports locally. Some editors are apparently insisting on calling this the IATA code. I have no problem using that code in the table as long as it is not called an IATA code which it is apparently not. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. If the codes are not defined by IATA, then calling them IATA codes is quite simply factually incorrect. It sounds vaguely similar to the situation at such places as McClellan-Palomar Airport, which has different FAA and IATA codes (whereas most US airports have identical FAA and IATA codes). I have no problem with including the codes, but they should be listed as whatever they are, and not as IATA codes. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 06:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

A new wiki specially for Planes...

Hello members of WikiProject Airlines,

I just wondered if anyone is interested in helping us with a new wiki, Plane Spotting World.

Please let me know if you;re interested!

Bluegoblin7 19:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

How is this not an WP:ADVERT?LeadSongDog (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Well I wouldn't go quite to that length, it is another wiki. Nevertheless, I choose to focus my efforts on only one website, this one. Sorry. NcSchu(Talk) 22:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Just because it's a MediaWiki powered site doesn't mean it's not an advertisement. I'm leaning towards it is, though in the interest of full disclosure, I will note that I help run a MediaWiki site that contains some of the kind of content this new site aims to provide (though we're GFDL-incompatible as we went with a non-commercial CC license). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Airline of the United Kingdom

A user has just renamed Template:Airlines of the United Kingdom to Template:UK Airlines have I missed something has this been discussed anywhere ? MilborneOne (talk) 20:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Some user has been creating templates using the UK format for other purposes. I would not be surprised if this is part of a misguided plan on their part to make all UK templates start with UK. I have other issues with the templates they are editing. I'd rename it back. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Airline destinations pages - keep or delete?

There is an AfD debate ongoing regarding the article Clickair destinations. While the page clearly complies with WikiProject Airlines guidelines on destinations lists (by taking long destinations lists off the main page into a dedicated article as this one) the suggestion is that the article does not belong in an encyclopedia and that it should be removed (without subseqent replication on the original Clickair page).

I am concerned that this would set a significant precedent for all airline articles and the 236 other airline destinations articles on Wikipedia. I would appreciate the views of other members and interested editors both here and at the AfD debate where I have already given my own thoughts. SempreVolando (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

From what I've seen, most of the airline and airport pages should be deleted due to blatant noncompliance with WP:V. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Isn't there some rule that an article can't be nominated for Afd more than once in a certain period? According to my records, Airline Destination articles were nominated in January 2006 and May 2007. Both results were keep and it seems absurd for them to be nominated again. NcSchu(Talk) 16:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
It is absurd to nominate them again. Both results were keep and it wasn't even close. Take a look at the archives. Sox23 21:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

AFD on Singapore Airlines Flight 380

I have nominated Singapore Airlines Flight 380 for Afd. As we don't have the ability to call upon nationalistic tendencies in any keep/delete reasonings, project members are urged to weigh in with their opinions on the matter. --Russavia (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This is getting absolutely ridiculous

The only thing I have to say, is that I have nothing to say, but will let the links do the talking.

Emirates Airline

Most of it is mere duplication of content in the main article, and this fanboy behaviour is seen on other articles such as Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways International and Singapore Airlines (funnily enough the creator of the Emirates navbox has used the Singapore Airlines navbox as a guide, but has stupidly left some of the Singapore Airlines in it).

This really does need to stop, the amount of absolutely irrelevant information in the airline articles is getting totally out of hand, and I will begin by simply nominating some these articles for deletion. There is no other way, is there? --Russavia (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Once again, Russavia is found to use belittling words against editors, the very same insult he once labelled contributors to the Singapore Airlines article which ignited a heated relationship since almost a year ago. I wonder just how closely he adheres to Wikipedia:No personal attacks before he thinks he consider himself in the moral position to make such comments[6].--Huaiwei (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Don't take it as an insult, if you take it that way then I am sorry, however, the amount of cruft-like information creeping its way into airline articles, and then being split out into separate pages is very much inline with fanboy behaviour. We don't need to include every conceivable piece of information in our articles, and we most certainly don't need article forks covering every conceivable subject relating to the airline. There would not a single airline which couldn't have all the relevant information included in the single article, yet more and more articles are having these forks, and perhaps project guidelines need to be reviewed and tightened somewhat. --Russavia (talk) 19:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Russavia, it is not as thou this is the first time you insult contributors by labelling them as "fanboys". I am pretty sure you are well aware that your behaviour resulted in reactions from multiple users opposing your inappropriate before, which you then gave a half-hearted promise not to use such comments again. Well now we can all see that your "promise" has never been worth much, since you are apparently hardly apologetic about it.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Afd notification for Emirates Airline Marketing and sponsorships

Just a heads up that I have put Emirates Airline Marketing and sponsorships up for Afd, which you can view here. Interested project members should weigh in with their opinions in the negative or positive. --Russavia (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Afd notification for several airline awards lists

Just a heads up that I have put Emirates Airlines awards and accolades, Malaysia Airlines awards, and Singapore Airlines awards and accolades up for Afd (bundled together), which you can view here. Interested project members should weigh in with their opinions in the negative or positive. --Russavia (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Tangentially related. Curious about this as I just looked at the awards section when I was re-writing Go_Fly. I looked through both Airlines and Aviation to see any consensus on the inclusion of awards in the main articles. Are past, and difficult to cite in Go's case, awards notable? I left them in the article when I re-wrote but don't know what they need to be there. Travellingcari (talk) 19:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
This is my opinion, others can weigh in also if they like, that awards can probably be provided in the main airline article, but it would be best to instead of having a list, that they be mentioned in prose within the article proper, with references of course. --Russavia (talk) 19:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
re: references, that's exactly the issue I'm having with some of the Go awards. If they were big enough to garner any press when they were awarded in 2000-2001, that press has gone off line now. I think one was citable, that's part of why I was leaning toward eliminating them. At this point, I think they fail notability and verifiability. Thanks for your inputTravellingcari (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
You can always try the google news archive search for sources, and if you need access to them, there was a list of editors who have access to various news databases, but I can't find it at the present time, that may allow you to garner some sources. --Russavia (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Just to point out that this is Russavia's second nomination on Singapore Airlines awards and accolades, the first AfD resulting in a keep. Nothing much has changed since then.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Just to point out that the previous debate had next to zero input from this project, and nearly wholesale input from the Singapore wikiproject. But you are right, not much has changed, especially the fact that these lists still fail WP:V in that they are wholly attributable to the airline PR departments and that they fail WP:N, WP:NOT#IINFO and WP:NOT#ADVERTISING. --Russavia (talk) 19:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I definitely agree with the WP:NOT#ADVERTISING reasoning for this. NcSchu(Talk) 19:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there any general discussion of awards in any wiki project? My feeling is that long lists of these likely cross the line into problems like WP:NOT#IINFO and WP:NOT#ADVERTISING. However I'm not sure when that would happen. Are all awards notable and encyclopedic? If a company received one of the yearly awards from the RJ is that notable and should it be included in an article? I do know that most awards are not considered defining so Categories are not created. I suspect that part of the problem here is that many awards are simply not notable. Please note that I have written this as a general comment. I have not looked at the nominated articles recently to see what they actually include. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I clearly remember this issue being raised before, and yes, the Singapore Airlines awards and accolades article has never tried to list every single award there is. The introduction says it all: "The following lists the more significant awards the airline has garnered.".--Huaiwei (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
And this was asked by myself, what is so significant about awards given out by the Scottish Passenger Agents Association, Korea Productivity Center, and Common Wealth Magazine, etc. The only response I got to that, from editor unknown at the moment, was along the lines of "seems notable to me" --Russavia (talk) 20:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
And which editor could that be? Meanwhile, if you were to remove those awards from the list, would you your subsequent response be?--Huaiwei (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Don't know which editor from memory, perhaps Vision or something like that? In response to the question as to what my subsequent response would be if I were to remove those awards from the list, it would likely be a response to the inevitable revert which would be performed by yourself. :D --Russavia (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
You assume too much, Russavia, but thank you for reaffirming your resolve to violate 3RR. ;) Meanwhile, I think it is only fair that you be specific and cite the relevant diffs to support your insinuations against anyone. I will not be pretty if they finds this out.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
"nearly wholesale input from the Singapore wikiproject" Kindly do not paint an inaccurate picture, Russavia. The profile of those who voted "keep" apparently involved three members from Singapore, and four members which are not from Singapore, including Vegaswikian. Did Vegaswikian join the Singaporean Wikiproject? No I just checked and he isn't in the list.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment Unfortunately, Vegaswikian's response in that Afd was, IMHO, somewhat flawed, because as I have pointed out in the current Afd for all 3 airlines, the correct response to getting rid of cruft is to delete it, rather than creating a new article for it. --Russavia (talk) 20:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment Unfortunately, this doesn't absolve you from an apparent attempt to mislead, regardless of how flawed the responses may be.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

British Caledonian in need of attention

I think that the British Caledonian article needs some attention. You have the main article, then these:

I did propose article mergers sometime ago, but those were removed by the editor who is responsible for these articles. Shy of Afd'ing them, what is the best approach to get all relevant information back on the main article page? --Russavia (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any particularly good reason for merging all of them in the first place?--Huaiwei (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Cmon now Huaiwei. WP:NOT#ESSAY, WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK. There could also be copyvio issues at play here, seeing as a single source has been used for the majority of the text in those articles. --Russavia (talk) 20:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
And thanks for the live demonstration of your negative commentary style once again, Russavia, plus yet another horrific example of policy misinterpretations and abuse. That you consider the above to be a case of WP:NOT#ESSAY and WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK is but a matter of personal opinion. None of the above articles qualify as an essay, because they are clearly sourced, even if they are derived primarily from one source. They are not WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK, because they are simply presenting the history of the airline. In what way do they "teach the subject matter with leading questions and step-by-step problem solutions as examples."??--Huaiwei (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not Russavia, but I can't imagine any good reason why anyone would want to look in 6 different articles for information that are a part of a whole. They seem to be chapters of one whole, therefore one article. Travellingcari (talk) 20:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe they exist in seperate articles for no reason than keeping the main article at a reasonable length.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Hadn't really considered that. Would one article on the 70s, therefore paralleling the 80s one also be too long? Or as Milborne said below, with some pruning? Just brainstorming. Travellingcari (talk) 02:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
It does look like somebody has dumped the source book into the articles. They are some bits that cover other happenings in British aviation which could probably be pruned a bit. Dont think it would all fit in one article. Not sure what the answer is. Perhaps it should be summarised and readers pointed to the book for further info! MilborneOne (talk) 20:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Go Fly

(copy and update of my own text, which I'd posted to the wrong spot)

I just did a massive re-write of Go_Fly because it had been unsourced for more than one year and read like a non-bulleted timeline with the associated lack of flow. Anyone have anything to add? I tried to keep it as "Go" focused as possible since easyJet, Ayling and Cassani have their own articles and we were entering the Department of Redundancy Department. In addition, the scope of the article is about Go, not the effects of Go on the other entities (except the BA relationship, which I attempted to address). I think the article is much better than it was, but there's probably still some work to be done. This is my first full-scale re-write under Aviation/Airlines so I'm definitely seeking your input. I'm not certain what needs to be added at this point for an airline that hasn't operated for 5+ years. Thoughts? Thanks! Travellingcari (talk) 00:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Destination list on Skybus Airlines

Should we remove the advertised destination tag under the destinations of Skybus Airlines on Skybus Airlines destinations. My opinion is we should remove this for it just makes the list longer. -chris^_^ (talk) 07:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's ok. Skybus doesn't really fly to that many destinations, and it's a major part of their operation to serve alternative, smaller airports but advertise it as part of a "nearby" major city. The same could probably be done with Ryanair destinations. In some cases, what Skybus does isn't that unusual (many airlines consider OAK a San Francisco airport and BUR a Los Angeles airport, for example), but some are a bit more unusual (St. Augustine as Jacksonville/Daytona Beach). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Fleet size of defunct airlines

While working on Mahalo Air today, I started to wonder what is the best way to handle the fleet size in the infobox for airlines that are no longer flying. Should it be zero since the airline no longer has any airplanes? Should it show the largest number of airplanes operated at any single time? Should it show the total number of airplanes ever operated by the airline? I would be tempted to say that it shouldn't show up at all for airlines that no longer operate; if this is the way to go I'd suggest someone more familiar with the template's complex syntax can make it disappear when the value is omitted, rather than appearing as a blank spot like it currently does. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Would using 'defunct' work for the size? The template could be modified later to not display that line if the size was defunct. In the meantime it would be meaningful. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Good question, I was considering the same question (among others) for Go. I was making myself more than a little crazy trying to find out the total nuumber of planes that it had and then said more or less, why kill myself? For Go, there's actually more useful stuff that I'm still trying to track down. Travellingcari (talk) 22:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

IATA codes on {{Navbox Airlines of the United States}}

An anonymous editor recently added IATA codes to many of the airlines listed on {{Navbox Airlines of the United States}}. I haven't seen any discussion of doing this on here; what do others think? I'm not sure I like it. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't like it. The IATA codes are adding nothing to the enhance the ability of readers to find other airlines. I'd say remove it. --Russavia (talk) 17:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Does not add any value to the navbox, it should only be used as discriminator if two airlines have the same name. MilborneOne (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe those edits are from an IP that has been behind some other interesting changes like adding the term 'regional airline sub brand' or something like that. A look at the edit history would be informative if this is the one I am think of. There were a bunch of early edits from a similar IP. BTW, this IP also adds some useful material. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I remember that. Looks like yesterday a badly formatted section (using lots of blank lines) was added for "Business organizations with multiple certificated airline holdings". Verbose term to provide way too much info. I removed that, and will remove the IATA codes from the template as well. I think we ought to add a charter airline section for the likes of Xtra Airways but I'll get to that later. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for EasyJet now open

The peer review for EasyJet is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Terminated destinations

Should these be included on the current destination pages? On some, there are so many destinations that it could be very confusing for the reader. If these should stay, shouldn't they have their own article? Sox23 21:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I'll state my view - Former airline destination lists are okay if they are sourced. It is okay if the lists are incomplete - We just do the best we can and list all former destinations. For many airlines this is significant as changes in the economy, political scenarios, or massive downsizing force them to cut routes. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind having them- I just think they need to be in a different list. For example- On the top it says: "This is a list of destinations that JetBlue Airways currently serves (As of January 2008.)." So since thats a current destination list, why don't we just create a Former [JetBlue Airways] destinations, etc...? Sox23 00:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
We've had former destination lists that *were* AFDed. I'd have to read the AFDs and see what happened. That doesn't necessarily mean the content is taboo - It means that the content may be best consolidated with the regular destinations. I'll take a look. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Alright, I found: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Former Delta Air Lines destinations - And the following were cited.
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive6#Discontinued_Service
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Previous_United_Airlines_destinations
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/United_Airlines_former_destinations

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say that if we're going to include former destinations, they should go wherever the current destination list is. If the destination list is in the main airline article, then the former destinations go there as well, and if there is a separate destinations article, then they should go in that article. We're having enough trouble with those articles as it is; having another set of former destination articles as well is really just asking for trouble... -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
What I did is I put former destinations in the same article as the current, so it should be no biggie :) WhisperToMe (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
As long as they are separate lists, thats fine. If it is a table format with the start and stop dates, that would be even better. If there are sources that's another plus. This is my position for airlines. This does not carry over to alliances. I see no need to list previous detestations there. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I dont think that former destinations are a good idea only because most of it would not be notable, sourced or not. Cant think how big a list some of the older airlines like KLM would need, in some instances over fifty years of changing destinations. MilborneOne (talk) 22:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Milborne, former destinations can be very much notable. They can show the reader a glimpse of an airline's former glory (in cases of downsized airlines like TWA, Varig, etc.) - Also, understand that even though years change, many times destinations only change by what airports are used. All we need to do is post what we know and do not assume what we do not. For very old TWA and Pan Am maps (yes, I listed as many of the destinations served by the carriers as I could) I did not check for airports. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
By the way, see Pan Am destinations and TWA destinations WhisperToMe (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Just expressing my opinion, if you have a concensus than I would abide by that. Just hope you remove all the flags! MilborneOne (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Check out Tiger Airways destinations and Jetstar Asia Airways destinations, where a table format is being demonstrated and former destinations presented accordingly with sources. Granted, both are smaller airlines which makes it easy to track such information. Not sure if this is plausible for giant airlines thou.--Huaiwei (talk) 10:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm, interesting table. The only thing I don't think would work for larger airlines would be the "commence date". NcSchu(Talk) 13:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
If one has the will, there will be a way. I am prepared to retrieve all copies of past annual reports of Singapore Airlines to obtain that information, for instance. If it was so easy to find these data, people would be discovering these information themselves elsewhere.
Also frequencies can change. IMO it is better to leave frequencies out. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
It really depends. Most airlines big or small tweak frequencies twice a year, if at all.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, but how would you be able to cite those? Frequencies are pretty hard to find on most airline websites, and I don't see their relevance. NcSchu(Talk) 17:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Practically all major airlines with a website presence publish their timetables online, typically with a interactive option, and frequently also by a single PDF file. You only need one link to that PDF as reference for flight frequencies in the entire list, which is so simple to accomplish. Take Singapore Airlines for example. Its interactive schedule option is right on its front page [7], where you simply choose your destination in the drop down list, click "show schedule" and viola! The result immediately tells you the number of flights per week. If this is too technically challenging, you just need to click Flights & Fares > Schedules & Timetables, which presents to you options to download the schedules as a PC software, download as a PDF file, or into your PDA. This is standard fare in many major airlines today, and I must say I am rather surprised that you should actually express "difficulties" in finding flight frequencies in most airline websites. If it is difficult to find flight frequencies on an airline website, that website deserves to be shut down immediately. As for their relevance, see below.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, lose the frequency as not encyclopedic and no guarantee that there was only one. Drop the flags. I'm not sure how important the layout is with the country breaks. How will readers be using this? It might be better to have the countries in the table itself and add rows based on the terminated date order. They can sort to get other information. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
If the flight frequency of a route is not encyclopaedic, then tell us why is the entire destination list encyclopaedic. Flight frequencies serve a critical measure of capacity in each route (I would also add aircraft type if possible to complete the picture), and is a direct indicator of (expected) market size. Market size estimation to determine capacity allocation and promotional work to build up loads is fundamental for an airline in its survival as a business, and is certainly encyclopaedic in every logical sense. The specific airport the airline flies to in each destination is far less encyclopaedic in comparison. In a table format, the flags can certainly stay for they add a dash of colour to an otherwise visually boring list. They do look horrible in bulleted lists thou. As for whether countries should appear as another column, my only concern is that this wastes a column of space for other potentially useful information.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Huaiwei, frequencies change often (look at large airlines), but destinations usually do not. Routes and equipment (i.e. types of aircraft) change often, but destinations do not. An airline may use a 737 one day and a 757 the next day. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Out of those, though, frequencies probably change the least often...if we include frequencies perhaps we can list the common frequencies and use "[seasonal]" tags. NcSchu(Talk) 23:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
That is a valid possibility. Since some airlines has vastly different summer and winter timetables, it will do well having those tags to avoid having to flip the timetable back and forth every six months!--Huaiwei (talk) 06:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I study airlines long enough to know for a fact that they do not change as often as you think (btw, "often" is subjective). And even if an airline decides to change them every month, their biannual published timetable do not change accordingly, and can still be used as reference for our frequency tables. An airline the size of Singapore Airlines has frequency changes which make news in local newspapers. If this is a common phenomena, why bother reporting each of them? And it is not a given that all major airlines change their equipment routinely. Some do (like Cathay Pacific), some do not (SQ). And for those who do, you just need to list the various equipment used for that route. This has been done in the Malaysia Airlines destinations article before (See [8]), and apparently it worked well. Routes change often? How often? How many derivatives can there be to fly from point A to point B in the highly protected aviation market we have today?--Huaiwei (talk) 06:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Frequency is not a measure of capacity as others have stated. For a long while AA ran two flights out of JFK that originated and terminated at JFK. One was JFK-SMX-ANU-JFK and the other JFK-ANU-SMX-JFK. How does the frequency relate to capacity? One direction was a DC-10 and the other a 727. Also how would one determine the frequency to put in the table? Is it the last before service was terminated? Is it the initial frequency? Is it the maximum on the route? Clearly in this proposal frequency is completely ambiguous. Even if we could agree on which to use, it would not paint a complete picture. So as I said, frequency is not encyclopedic. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
You did not read my comment properly. ASK is the best measure of capacity, and it is directly related to aircraft type (seats per aircraft) and frequency (the other element being actual distance flown). Hence, both entries should be included since ASKs are relatively difficult to source for. A second-best alternative is not unencyclopaedic just because you think they cannot paint as accurate a picture. To me, a destination list doesn't paint an accurate picture of the airline's operations either, and is next to useless in determining an airline's market share, so shall we deem them unencyclopaedic and remove them as well? Citing all kinds of "extreme impossibilities" is clearly attempting to sidetrack the issue, for each of them can very well be discussed at a later stage. Why else are we now discussing the inclusion of terminated destinations , when destination lists were introduced long ago without too much worries over all kinds of possibilities of errors and shortcomings like what you are doing now? I say be bold and go right ahead and try it out, as I have already done. Actual implementation of ideas is far more productive than whining over every single potential problem.--Huaiwei (talk) 06:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This is my take on terminated destinations. They don't belong at all. Take this recent Afd, there is the thought by an increasing amount of editors that even the current destination lists do not belong, although they have used the wrong arguments IMO, none of them really jumped upon something which I mentioned myself, that being that most of the CURRENT destination lists are not sourced to third-party reliable sources; this is an essential part of WP:V. This means that we can not have separate airline destination lists sourced entirely to the airline, as per WP:SPS and WP:SELFPUB, these lists need to be sourced to a third-party source, and IMO it is not as simple as simply claiming OAG.com as a source, as sources which require registration, and moreso payment, such as OAG, should be avoided at all costs as it doesn't allow for verifying by other editors. Back in October 2007, I went thru all of the airline destination lists and attached the unreferenced template to them; now some 4-5 months later the vast majority of these lists are still unreferenced, and some have had the template removed and a source placed along the lines of "Source: XYZ Airline" with a link to their website. Pick a random airline destination list, and see if it is referenced inline with WP:V, very few of them are. As more and more things get added to these lists, such as frequencies, notes, and now terminated destinations, all of which are sourced back to the airline, the more and more I am being swayed myself to believe that these lists are becoming more duplications of an airlines website, and that is squarely against various points of WP:NOT. Something else that is concerned with this discussion, there is an increasing tendency in this project for long and sprawling lists and "PR" to take precedence over encycloapedic prose; take a look at most airline articles, and under the Destinations and there is simply a link to the destinations article, with not a single word of prose included. Before we, as a project, even consider whether terminated destinations should be included, the issue of verifiability needs to be looked at first and resolved. --Russavia (talk) 13:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Your long paragraph basically says terminated destinations should be removed due to technical reasons like WP:V, rather than logical and notability factors. So if terminated destinations meets the WP:V criteria, I wonder what you have to say about that.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
No, my long paragraph states that instead of adding more unsourced cruft to existing articles, that perhaps we as a project (side observation, which I see you still have not joined, why is that?), should concentrate on fulfilling policy such as WP:V, instead of creating more problems which will be left unresolved. WP:V is not a technical reason, it is squarely part of the five pillars. And I wouldn't worry too much about what I would have to say about it, but rather what the community at large will have to say about it when articles are yet again put up for Afd.
I clearly mention asking what your comment would be if the so-called cruft is sourced and meets WP:V.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
How about instead of discussing whether we can source former destinations inline with WP:V, which means no airline websites, no airline annual reports, no airline timetables, etc, we discuss getting the current destinations up to standards expected by WP:V and WP:RS. If we are going to keep these destination lists as separate articles and fight for their continued inclusion in this project (not the airline project but Wikipedia), we need to ensure that 1) they are sourced to WP:RS other than the airline, or a source which requires registration (such as OAG.com) 2) they are sourced to a WP:RS which requires no original research, meaning using say www.amadeus.net and providing links to the current airline destinations, as this could be seen as a hit and miss approach. Then, and only then, do I believe that we as a project can even begin to discuss the existence, format, etc of former destinations. If we start including former destinations now, and the airline destination articles are put up for Afd again in the future, seeing as the abovelinked Afds resulted in the former destination articles were deleted very easily, this will not IMO help the continued existence of the airline destination articles series. This is part of the reason that I merged the Aeroflot destinations article back into the main Aeroflot article, so that if the other destination articles should go up for Afd in future, and seeing as the Aeroflot article is sourced to a reliable source which isn't affiliated with Aeroflot, it could be kept, whilst this project at least re-assesses whether these destination articles are all that necessary. --Russavia (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest that using the airline website/timetable as a source for destinations could fall under WP:SELFPUB and be acceptable. In particular, note that they're not particularly contentions (only oddball edge cases ought to cause arguments about whether or not an airline flies to a particular destination). The place where we'd run into problems is that the separate destinations articles will likely be primarily based on those sources, and that would be a problem. That said, I like what you've done with Aeroflot -- the table looks nice, it defaults to being collapsed so that it doesn't overwhelm the article, and by not using headings it doesn't overwhelm the table of contents either (which is fine for destinations articles but I'm not fond of it for integrated destination lists on main articles). Using that as a template and reintegrating the destinations articles would at least avoid having to deal with more AfDs on them. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 16:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

And that is actually the problem in regards to WP:SELFPUB Hawaiian. The quotes to follow are from an admin who participated on the Afd for Clickair destinations, and I quote him

Regarding that it is a "not a stand alone article" (Russavia), it may be intended to function as a part of the article on the company but it doesn't. It is in the mainspace and is thus ipso facto stand alone. More importantly, while the distinction is at least colorably relevant for notability considerations, as that is a topic inclusion standard, it is irrelevant for WP:NOT and WP:V considerations as those are content inclusion standards. The issue is not why it became a separate article, but whether the content is appropriate, anywhere. In the article, or stand alone, the material suffers from the same defect. If it was still listed in the article, then it would be inapproriate there for the same reasons. The only difference is that because it is in the mainspace, we are here, rather than on Clickair's talk page, but the WP:NOT and verifiability issues would be the same.

What he has written makes absolute sense. These destination list are not lists which can be used as red-link development, etc, but in essence they are in fact stand-alone articles. One argument I believe in, and have used it at this Afd, is that the answer to get rid of horrible cruft is to delete it, not make a separate article for it. Over the time with the Afds for airline destination articles we have only just been able to keep them, but with more people with more arguments such as the quoted above, these destination articles will have a grim future, so instead of creating yet another guideline which the community at large may have a problem with, we need to look at the current destination articles first, and what alternatives we have to them. Some suggestions:

  • As Hawaiian717 pointed out we merge destination articles back in the main airline article in tables much like that at Aeroflot. The advantage of this is that we will never have to look at another Afd for airline destination articles in the future
  • Look at introducing very strict guidelines in the project which will govern the use of a separate article. Such articles will need to meet WP:V, WP:RS, etc, etc
  • Encourage the use of prose within articles to describe the airline network, and possibly also the use of self-made GFDL-compliant route maps within the articles to go along with the prose. This will also have the effect of reducing what I think I will term "spotter syndrome" within the articles, meaning that a lot of articles are absolutely plastered with photos of their aircraft, and in most cases they are either not needed, or they look totally out of place in relation to the area in the article at which they are located. Perhaps there is a member of this project who is good at doing route maps and would be available to do them on a request basis?
  • Any other suggestions which others may have?

Whilst this group sees these lists as essential (I think the lists are 50% essential for current destinations, and not essential at all for terminated destinations), the community at large increasingly doesn't, and I would hate to see people wasting their time on compiling and adding information which could very easily be deleted at Afd. And I will explain my 50% essential comment: the major reason we as a group use for the keep at Afd is that airlines are in the business of flying from Point A to Point B, and that our readers need to know this. The counter argument to this is that if people want to know where an airline flies to, they need only go to the airlines website and find this info themselves. A fair point I think, seeing as the vast majority of these lists are sourced only from the airline anyway. But how to treat airlines which don't have a website, like say ChukotAVIA? --Russavia (talk) 17:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm in about the same place where you are. While I like the idea of maps instead as it displays the same information in a more concise manner, and does so visually, sourcing the data in them (assuming we'd end up creating them ourselves) would have the same problems. You can see what this sort of thing might look like on San Diego International Airport, where User:Sox23 has been maintaining a map of destinations served from that airport. He uses FlightMemory.com to create the maps. I will point out too that with maps versus text, we do lose the easy ability to diff and see changes over time. I think merging the destinations list back and sourcing them to the airline would allow them to meet a literal reading of WP:SELFPUB, as it would no longer violate the "the article is not based primarily on such sources" clause. Though I might agree that this would be exploiting a bit of a loophole. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy of Future of air transport in the United Kingdom now open

The peer review for Future of air transport in the United Kingdom is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 14:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Consensus reached on several issues

Since it it clear that consensus was established and remains to not include tail numbers, flight numbers and code share destinations in article tables, I'm going to revert back in the changes to the project page. I understand that some editors strongly oppose this view. However the consensus is present supporting this. Likewise there is acceptance that there can be individual exceptions. One was clearly identified for the tail numbers at Frontier Airlines. I think most editors in this discussion understand that some editors will consider this to be an attack on their work. However it is clearly not an attack on any article. We are simply working to build a unified encyclopedia that consists of encyclopedic information. We owe it to all readers to have articles that follow some style sheet. That is part of what makes an encyclopedia a good encyclopedia. Vegaswikian 18:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Concensus has been reached not to include these information unless they are encyclopedic. I have updated this article to reflect this. A good encyclopedia is not one defined just because it has a consistent presentation. This is superficial, and will not impress the experts who know better. We owe it to all readers to have articles which are factually accurate and serves a purpose in providing them with verifiable information which will be useful in better understanding the subject matter or as a source for research, and not articles which have factual deficiencies and incomplete content hidden under the veneer of spectacular packaging to mislead readers into thinking they are reading high-quality content. I often wondered what would be the outcome if members of this wikiproject channel more of their time towards working on articles to reach FA status, instead of spending months on end arguing over the removal of a single column in a single table in a single article.--Huaiwei 02:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
    • So now we can just try and reach consensus on what those encyclopedic exceptions are. Vegaswikian 06:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Not to be picky, but technically everything on Wikipedia is supposed to be encyclopedic, I feel like including this comment in the guidelines will only make the problem worse as people try to argue everything and anything is encyclopedic to themselves. In regard to the "months and months of arguing", it's very important, IMO, to have structure for these articles. I think we have seen what happens to articles when they do not abide by a set structure, namely they go out of control and get filled with pointless information. Members on here should be, and are, helping both with structure issues and helping with improving content to get articles up to FA status, both of which act hand in hand. NcSchu(Talk) 13:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to implement the concensus which we reached on the matters of flight numbers and codeshare destinations (haven't touched registrations yet) on Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways International, and Huaiwei outright refuses to abide by the concensus reached in this project for the layout of airline articles, reverting any changes which are made. In order for this project to implement any concensus reached, I think it may now be necessary to request that Huaiwei be blocked from editing such articles until such time as he is willing to abide by concensus reached on such articles (he was previously blocked from editing Chinese related articles for some time, so this is not a new thing that he is doing here). To make this request, where does one go, because it is now getting beyond the totally ridiculous. I see no other way to resolve this, as previous mediation Huaiwei has shown he will not abide by consensus, and this is having a knock on effect on other articles, which Huaiwei also reverts in order to push his apparent ownership of the SIA article --Russavia (talk) 02:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the claim being used is that there was a consensus based on the Singapore Airlines talk page that the items were discussed and there was a consensus to keep. I don't believe that there have been any discussions there since the consensus was reached here in our discussions. I don't believe that any other editors have commented on this to support either position on the Singapore Airlines talk page. Personally, I see no merit to a claim that the material in that article is encyclopedic. It appears that the logic for reversing your edits is that exceptions are allowed and that Singapore Airlines is an exception. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
You are correct, there have been no discussions on that talk page since, and repeated requests for Huaiwei to provide an explanation as to the encyclopaedic value of flight numbers has gone unanswered at every stage that they have been asked. Additionally, as mentioned here, Huaiwei himself has asked that discussions which affect more than 1 article take place on this project page, this has been done, and he now point blank refuses to abide by concensus on this project. The claim is made that I have a strong anti-SQ stance, hence my forcefulness in making these edits, whereas if one looks, it is Huaiwei and the SQ article where his apparent ownership of the article is making it impossible for other editors to either have input in the article, look at those who edited before the mediation which centred around Huaiwei (sorry to be so blunt, but it is the case) and who no longer waste their time editing that article). Something needs to be done, what is appropriate? RFC/U? Or what else? Perhaps someone else can attempt to edit the SIA article inline with concensus and see where that gets us --Russavia (talk) 05:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Since Russavia continues to try to portray ownership behaviour on my part in that article, perhaps he could provide some hard facts on this allegation? It appears that he would stop short in doing so each time I challenges him to provide evidence on this.--Huaiwei (talk) 18:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Only too happy to show the ownership behaviour by yourself, simply look at any of the reverts by yourself in the last few days, in which concensus which was reached on this very page has been totally ignored by yourself. Additionally, the other thing which has been totally ignored by yourself is repeated requests by myself and other editors to please provide reasoning as to why you believe that flight numbers, codeshare destinations and wholesale lists of aircraft registrations are encyclopaedic when it concerns Singapore Airlines, when other articles don't see the need for the degree of marketing appearing on the SQ article (and also on the Malaysia Airlines, Emirates Airline, and Thai Airways International articles - and I am sure there are others in dire need of attention). --Russavia (talk) 18:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I fail to see any sign of article ownership tendencies. On the other hand, I see an individual who came into this site with an obvious disdain towards a group of editors who contribute to a article concerning a well-regarded airline (a well-sourced fact clearly noted with much soreness by this individual), and abuses wikipolicy to support a long-drawn attempt to counter their work. He makes insulting comments against these users, and attempts to "ally" himself with a few other editors who happen to have slightly similar sentiments (but never as extreme as his). He begins to nit-pick small aspects of the said article, flags any item bordering on "technicalities" as the work of fanatics for deletion, and examines every superlative comment, including well-sourced ones, with an unusually suspicious eye. And when his bad-faith edits gets countered and challenged, he engages in a revert war, chooses to filibuster over technicalities and makes absolutely no attempt to move away from his position. When it was obvious the said "warfare" is not going to come to and end, he whines around as the pitiful victim of article ownership, claiming that every edit was reverted by this said individual as his only evidence. This, despite the fact that the accused has actually never declared ownership of any kind, has never stopped anyone from making well-meaning edits, and has never taken the position of having a final say in how the article grows and develops. Given the above, I kinda wonder just what you are expecting me to see.
May I further repeat (once again), that arguments presented which are at odds with your position should not be ignored to the extent of claiming their non-existence. I clearly remember repeating the arguments for making exceptions in both aspects of flight numbers and aircraft registration numbers, including in discussions where you were an active participant. In the meantime, your arguments for their deletion has never gone past WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:IDONTCARE, and WP:ALLORNOTHING comments. I have yet to figure out just how a bunch of flight numbers and registration numbers are supposed to help market an airline. I wonder how codeshared destinations operated by another airline is supposed to bolster sales for another airline, while destinations lists of actual flights flown, types of classes and services provided, and even the history of the airline are allowed to stay when all these details would clearly fall into the "marketing" category as per your definition? Where is your unbiased logic, Russavia?--Huaiwei (talk) 19:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
All that and you fail to address the part of Russavia's post that would lead to actually keeping this stuff in the article: please provide reasoning as to why you believe that flight numbers, codeshare destinations and wholesale lists of aircraft registrations are encyclopaedic when it concerns Singapore Airlines. If you can't do that, then it has to go. Project consensus was that these items are normally not encyclopedic, and any exceptions would have to be explained. As for the rest of your diatribe, WP:NPA. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I write in response to an allegation of WP:OWN on my part in the said article, so it is only natural that you will not find myself having to repeat reasonings for keeping the said content. I certainly hope, in the interests of WP:NPA, that you may read up on past discussion on your own first before assuming failure on my part to support my stand.--Huaiwei (talk) 06:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I may not comment on every issue frequently, but I have been following this as it's dragged on for months. I do not recall any sufficient establishment of notability for the list of flight numbers, codeshare destinations, and aircraft registrations for SIA. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 06:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe the point wasent argued over "notability", but an exception made to ensure technical accuracy especially in regards to aircraft registration numbers (SQ's derated B777-200ERs and remodelled as B777-200s can only be accurately identified by these numbers). Flight numbers were added not as some kind of "travel guide" as alleged by misinformed individuals, but to give an indication of the company's role in geographic regions (it is not meant to be an accurate reflection of market share however, obviously). Both of these points has been mentioned numerous times before, but some individuals continue to disregard them by voicing concerns over "copycats" in other articles. An argument for an exception is not the same as arguing for a site-wide implementation, but this distinction is obviously lost on individuals bent on an autocratic style of ensuring every nitty-gritty detail uncompromisingly falls in line.
The codeshare agreement list existed as a string of text in the codeshare section, which is fully permitted as per WP guidelines. A conversion of the same list into a table format suddenly attracts the attention of the usual suspects, who insists the same guideline outlaws them. In actual fact, that guideline restricts codeshare destinations from actual destinations in airline destination lists, and has never outlawed codeshare destinations under the codeshare section. The original guideline makes sense, for its concern in avoiding confusion over codeshared and actual routes flown. To then argue that codeshared destinations cannot be mentioned elsewhere in the article under a subsection which clearly demarcates them as codeshared begins to sound logicically silly, for just what kind of confusion can this cause then?--Huaiwei (talk) 07:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the article, the codeshare destinations don't really bother me, and the more I think about it, it does make sense. I still don't really see the need to list the actual tail numbers to is helps to distinguish between regular and derated 777s aside from visually identifying whether an aircraft is a 777ER or derated 777, but there should be other ways to do that (airlinerlist.com for example). That said, the current format of showing ranges I think is an improvement, I think in the past each individual tail number was listed and that was excessive. Finally, I'm still not sure how listing flight number ranges helps indicate the airline's role in various geographic regions beyond what Singapore Airlines destinations provides. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
If I may explain in greater detail, SIA purchased a total of 46 Boeing 777-200ERs, of which 31 are fitted with lower-powered engines to fly regional routes. The airline then did the unusual thing of actually displaying these derated aircraft as "777-200s". It is not easy to visually distinguish between a "normal" and a "derated" 777-200ER, so the tail numbers becomes the most obvious and fail-safe indicator. Further more, a table which includes tail numbers is actually pretty helpful to someone attempting to identify a plane make at the scene or from a photograph, without prior knowledge needed in the aircraft's physical appearance.
As for flight numbers, consider this: SIA flies to 13 destinations in South Asia as per Singapore Airlines destinations, while it flies to 10 destinations in Southeast Asia . Yet while the former is allocated a range of 100 possible flight numbers, the later gets 200. Then consider another scenario: the airline flies to five destinations in Korea and Japan, and to six in China and Taiwan, yet each is allocated 100 possible flight numbers. Europe, with 13 destinations, also gets 100. While the first directly reflects the fact that there are far more frequent flights to Southeast Asian destinations compared to South Asian ones, the later scenario indicates what the airline deems as critical geographical markets with greater growth potential, hence the large range accorded to East Asian destinations. None of these interpretations would have been possible based on what Singapore Airlines destinations can show in its current form.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
The reasoning you provide for the inclusion of registrations is covered in WP:NOT. The reasoning for flight numbers, as mentioned to you in earlier discussions, is not relevant as it is entirely your interpretation of what flight numbers mean, as it does not take into account that an airline can have a daily flight to a city yet each flight can utilise a different flight number, or that an airline can have a daily flight to a city and utilises the same flight number, and a host of other variables. What do you want this group to do Huaiwei, have another gathering of concensus to reinforce the previous concensus? --Russavia (talk) 11:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
In watching the edits to Singapore Airlines it appears that some editors believe there is some reason that this consensus may not apply to that article and simply refer back to this discussion, and the other discussions that this summarized. Rather then getting into another revert war, I think that we should ask here what support exists to support a position that the Singapore Airlines article is an exception to this consensus and exactly why? Vegaswikian (talk) 20:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
So what exactly is being asked here? To gather another concensus to reinforce the previous concensus. The concensus gathered on this talk page was pretty clear - codeshare partners not to list destinations, flight numbers lists do not belong, and aircraft registrations do not belong unless the fleet itself is notable. Its really that easy isn't it? --Russavia (talk) 17:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
You are correct in that consensus was clear. The current issue is, is there is any support for an exception for Singapore Airlines While there may be later discussions, the lack of any support to this point makes it very clear that there is no support for Singapore Airlines being an exemption from the consensus achieved. Hopefully this will put an end to the edit wars. If not, consider this a request for an uninvolved admin to protect the article in a state that supports the consensus and ends the edit waring. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Kindly be aware that Singapore Airlines is referred to as SIA or SQ in aviation circles. SA commonly refers to South African Airways. Please do not confuse readers by (consistently) misusing abbreviations. Thanks.--Huaiwei (talk) 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You're avoiding the issue. What is your basis for claiming SQ has an exemption from the consensus that that articles shouldn't include flight number, registration number, or codeshare destination listings? It should be obvious from context that the reference to "SA" was meant to refer to Singapore Airlines. Just like SW is often used (I've even seen it that way on Airport signs) to refer to Southwest Airlines (WN/SWA). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 04:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
It is true that I have not responded to the primary issue in my latest response. But if individuals cannot even use correct codes and be especially careful with potentially conflicting abbreviations in an avitation-related discussion, that certainly does tell me something. Perhaps I may have digressed, but I find it odd that when you yourself was involved in a similar discussion just a few posts before, you could actually ask for my responses to the exact same questions - again. I am not sure if selective amnesia is a contagious disease, but I would humbly request that you, and all who persist in asking the same question, to refer to the preceeding comments if you are geniunely interested in continuing the discussion. Many thanks in advance.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Your explanation was refuted by Russavia and you did not respond further, yet you continue to persist in violating consensus with the SQ article. And, your little comment trying to diagnose me with selective amnesia prompts me to remind you to read WP:NPA again. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I write in response to your comments, and I am expecting third opinions, certainly not the same old comments coming from Russavia. Unless, of course, you are telling me you have the exact same opinion as him. Then again, I will not be too surprised if the later is true, especially when dealing with a WP which has always given me the impression of being heavily infected by Groupthink behavior. Besides labelling anything self-perceived as "uninteresting" and "too technical" as WP:NOT, what other ground-shaking initiatives has this WP managed to archieve?--Huaiwei (talk) 21:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for comment/User conduct for Huaiwei and Russavia

The neverending Huaiwei-vs-Russavia catfight is flaming on yet again in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singapore Airlines Flight 380, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emirates Airlines awards and accolades and now this very page, with allegations and mud-flinging going on both sides, and all articles affected suffering as a result. As I can't claim to be entirely neutral in this matter, I'm a little hesitant to bring this to RFC, but if there are others who are as tired of this bleep as I am and would be willing to support the RFC, please let me know. Jpatokal (talk) 19:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this. It seems to me that Huaiwei in particular seems to refuse to abide by any consensus that doesn't go his way. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
First, I presume you are assuming my editing history is centred on dealing with opposing concensus on matters related to this wikiproject. Second, my username is huaiwei. Not huawei. Thank you.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I am basing my opinion on your reverting of changes to articles that remove content determined to be non-notable after discussion on this wikiproject. I haven't examined your editing history but I'm sure its full of worthwhile edits, but that can't excuse your behavior here. And I apologize for misspelling your name and have fixed it in my comment above. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Well thank you for the amendment. I personally do not feel anyone needs an excuse for inappriopriate behavior, so if that is what you think I am after, you have to be greatly mistaken. On the other hand, I am look forward to know just what excuses may be presented to explain insults against contributors, amongst other things, so an RFC may be the best opportunity for that. ;)--Huaiwei (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I would be happy to support the RFC, but as the subject of the RFC proposal, I feel that my support may be a bit prejudiced :) --Russavia (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
As a comment here, I strongly suggest that a solution be found before anything is taken to an RfC. My guess is that any outcome is likely to wide up in arbitration and is likely to include a ban of one or more editors from specific articles or some articles by topic. Since everyone involved has had many good contributions, a ban would not be what I want to see. So either compromise or reach some other amiable solution or risk a ban of some kind. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed this as well, and while I've never gotten involed with an RFC proposal I do feel it would be a little harsh. It seems like both users constantly reply to and attack one another like two bickering children (this is as accurate a comparison as I can make). They both need to calm down and be civil. I would also suggest, that if Huaiwei is going to continue to contribute to this discussion, that he join this WikiProject, otherwise I don't see why he keeps having to question Russavia's ideas (though Russavia is also to blame for this feud). NcSchu(Talk) 20:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't consider the fact that an editor is, or is not, a member of the project significant. Their comments and opinions are still valid and need to be considered. I am not a member of all of the projects that I participate in. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I meant it more as an observation (in fact I just realized that my name wasn't on the member's list). The fact that Huaiwei isn't a member but yet seems to target all of Russavia's posts seems a bit more than just wanting to participate in the discussions but rather more of a personal matter. NcSchu(Talk) 21:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Admittedly, my history with several members of this wikiproject has been rather colourful, to say the least. That I am still not a member of this WikiProject despite obvious interest and expertise in this field was a matter of personal choice, something I did routinely explain before, but which I have always hoped will become redundant. To be brutally honest, one of my biggest piffs was my observation that this WikiProject seems to be led by individuals (primarily Vegaswikian) who hold what I consider as a rather myopic view on several issues (constant believe that aviation articles should be readable to laymen only), with a tendency of over-controlling articles relevant to aviation (in a bid to have a "consistent" presentation). I consider the former stifling towards attempts to improve the wikiproject, and I consider the latter a serious attempt in misleading users into thinking they are looking at quality content when sadly, they are not most of the time. I was greatly concerned that there seems to be more users who are just content to bicker over the smallest details on presentation, than to actually work on improving existing content. I may be wrong in my perception, but the fact that this Wikiproject, despite all its attempts to "streamline" articles, has hardly produced any featured article is an obvious testimony in itself of its shortcomings.
Still, I admit I am actually rather moved that it was still Vegaswikian who made the comments above in the hope of extending an olive branch and to settle the matter amicably within this arena. For all the old impressions I may have on certain individuals, they can just as easily melt away and be forgiven, as long as sincerity prevails. I believe this would be the same sentiments amongst most others, and I sense that there is hope yet in my rocky road within this realm!--Huaiwei (talk) 21:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm open to exploring alternatives to RfC, but I don't really see what viable options we have: for example, Huaiwei has previously rejected mediation for disputes, and the countless squabbles we're dealing with here aren't so much conflicts over article content as over the personalities involved.

But if both parties are now amenable to mediation and agree to voluntarily abide by its results — even if the mediator's proposed remedy is something fairly drastic like "Stop editing SQ-related articles for a year" — then that would be great. Huaiwei and Russavia, are you willing? Jpatokal (talk) 02:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Please go ahead and request the RFC/U. If being stopped from editing any article for any length of time is what it takes in order for articles in this project to progress and eventually reach FA-status then so be it. That has been my intent all along, and frankly, the amount of time and energy that this has taken up and frustration it has caused, has stopped me from pursuing other things within WP for a long time. --Russavia (talk) 16:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Other things such as? How about turning the Aeroflot article into another propaganda piece, for instance? ;)--Huaiwei (talk) 16:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
No, other things such as rewriting the Aeroflot article and turning it into a relevant, well-written, well-structured, comprehensive, NPOV article which will be worthy of FA-status; an article devoid of PR-related material, long sprawling crufty lists of irrelevant material; an article which takes into account WP:FIVE, and any concensus reached by the community at large and this project in particular. --Russavia (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
So has that said article reached your editorial standards, after committing an extended period and intense effort in "whipping other articles in order"? Do we even have one article to take reference from?--Huaiwei (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you not even restrain yourselves on a topic about this very type of speech? NcSchu(Talk) 17:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this RFC/U going to be going ahead or not? I would appreciate it if it could be instigated by other users, as it is now getting beyond a joke. I have bundled for Afd the following articles, Emirates Airlines awards and accolade, Malaysia Airlines awards, Singapore Airlines awards and accolades, and I have now officially had an absolute gutful of dealing with Huaiwei, and his total incivility as shown in this Afd; refer his bolding of disruptively trying to enforce an individual view, then rambling on about a guilty conscience because I take issue with his doing this. Additionally, Alice[9], RomanceOfTravel[10] and Huaiwei[11] have subverted this Afd process by removing the Afd template from the Singapore Airlines award article, and Huaiwei has interfered with the Afd process by removing the Singapore Airlines award article from the Afd whilst it is still in discussion[12]. Added to the continual refusal of these users to abide by concensus on the Singapore Airlines with the reverting of the removal of flight number lists, and codeshare information condensing as per our project guidelines, one can begin to see how one can become so damn frustrated in having to deal with this on a continual basis. So please, let's get this RFC/U going, so that this project can get back on track and get on with business. --Russavia (talk) 18:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears from this outburst that you are seeing the RFC/U as some kind of tool to get back at people who "irritates" and "frustrates" you. Am I seeing a potential abuse of the intended purpose of an RFC/U, because if so, I think you need to read and re-read this statement: "RfCs brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary are not permitted. Repetitive, burdensome, or unwarranted filing of meritless RfCs is an abuse of the dispute resolution process. RfC is not a venue for personal attack."[13] I believe the above comment has become the best evidence of your intention to subdue those who continously oppose your personal agendas.--Huaiwei (talk) 21:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

SkyEurope

I just completed some work on SkyEurope but the additional information and sourcing appears to have broken the layout with respect to the photos. Can someone lend a hand with that? I know the article needs more information, but I found overall sources to be somewhat lacking apart from some PR cruft. I plan to look more into sources when I have the time. Thanks! Travellingcari (talk) 02:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The article had three photos, two of which both illustrated the same livery, and the third was a rather useless boarding-the-plane shot. I've cut it to just one. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 04:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much! I think it looks a lot better now and less bunchy. Travellingcari (talk) 04:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm at it again. I added a little bit of information on the IPO since it was historic and the growth and change of 2007. I moved some of that from "destinations" since it was placed there when it was announced and now that it's passed it became "history". In addition, I don't see the closure of a hub as much of a destination, so history seemed to be the logical place in the article to look for it. I also took out some information I couldn't source (ee info -- likely to change anyway). Travellingcari (talk) 19:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

ETA: and I have no idea whether airfleets qualifies as a reliable source, but it had been in the article and I saw no reason to remove it. Travellingcari (talk) 19:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

List of airlines

I'd like to break up the way too long List of airlines page. I think List of airports has the right idea, and I've already incorporated some into the intro (Airline codes). Comments? Should the be a separate page for each country? Or for each continent? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 21:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with you but would suggest it should be by country or you could still end up with long lists. It is an advantage to have a list as well as a category to show up the red links for articles that need to be created. MilborneOne (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay I think I was directed in this direction to comment. I too am in agreement that the list of airlines is way too long unyieldy and does not facility quick, practical and expeditious searches. I posted the same thing too somewehere recently and had tried to add list boxes to help facilitate to no avail. Good luck with this as I am over many of the wikiNazis (sorry no offence intended to real Nazis and anyone concerned with political correctnesss and all that may be concerned with this confederate flagged term!!!) that frequent this place.63.215.26.148 (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Flybe franchise and codeshare destinations

Should we have articles on codeshare destination like Flybe franchise and codeshare destinations ? MilborneOne (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

  • What exactly is a franchise as used here? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think this article is necessary, standalone airline destinations articles were designed to take long lists of destinations off main airline pages, lists which themselves should explicitly not include codeshare / franchise destinations. Also, the fact that this franchise (Flybe / Loganair) will not start for another 10 months further reinforces the lack of value in this particular article. SempreVolando (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Regional and Mainline Airline Holding Companies of the United States

User:63.215.26.148 (along with similar IP address presumably being used by the same user) is at it again with improperly implemented, badly formatted navboxes of questionable usefulness. This one is titled "Regional and Mainline Airline Holding Companies of the United States". While it sounds good in concept, I think it needs work:

  1. It's not implemented as a template, but rather directly on Trans World Corporation. I haven't come across it anywhere else yet.
  2. It should probably be called "Airline Holding Companies of the United States". Regional and Mainline doesn't add anything.
  3. Should it list the subsidiaries of each holding company? I'm thinking that if it's a navbox of airline holding companies, it should not.
  4. It takes up way to much vertical space when expanded. Too many blank lines.
  5. Is it useful to list holding companies that don't have a separate article from the subsidiary airline, such as Aloha Air Group? Should they be listed but linked to the article on the subsidiary airline? What if the subsidiary owns multiple airlines (e.g. Pinnacle Airways Corp.)?

-- Hawaiian717 (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

This is already covered in {{Airlines of the United States}} which was already included in the article. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually I'm not sure it is. {{Airlines of the United States}} covers the airlines themselves; I could see a usefulness of a navbox for airline holding companies (US Airways Group, AMR Corp., Mesa Air Group, etc). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Well there is also Category:Airline holding companies so would we need both a template and category? Vegaswikian (talk) 21:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Probably not. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
And to clarify my opinion, I'd rather have the category than the template. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 21:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
If there is consensus here that the IP is a vandal then we can consider blocking the IP address. Since it appears to be a static address, this should not present a problem. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this is the same guy we were talking about above in "IATA codes on Navbox Airlines of the United States". Same MO: an obsession with detailing the minute details of subsidiaries, sub-brands, and so on. Whether or not this is a vandal is up for debate (as you pointed out above he does have some useful edits), but it's definitely not been a static address (we'd probably have to block the /24 to really block him). I'd rather someone could convince him to register, join the project, and work with us to refine what he wants to add to something that actually works. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 20:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I give up, for now. The concept is basically sound, though I'm not certain it's strictly necessary to have along with the category. I'll convert it to a template tonight, and it can be refined from there, or taken to WP:TfD if so desired. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

{{Airline holding companies of the United States}}. I'm thinking we should drop the listing of each subsidiary airline but didn't do that yet. If we do that, I'm thinking that holding companies without their own article should be linked to the subsidiary airline article--unless people think the holding company ought to have its own article, then leaving them redlinked would be good for article development. Companies with more than one airline but no article on their own would be linked to the primary carrier (e.g. Northwest Airlines for Northwest Airlines Corporation). -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
As I was pointing out to Hawaiian recently, with all this merger and buying and swapping of airlines.....airlines names change with the drop of a hat... however IATA codes do not. That is why I included IATA codes with the airlines... for it keeps the tracking history much more simple. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.26.148 (talk) 06:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

AeroLogic

Think that AeroLogic (see Lufthansa Cargo) should be created as a new airline article now that it has officially been founded.Bthebest (talk) 19:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. A google news search doesn't seem to have much information beyond what's already sufficiently covered. I'd suggest holding off until more info is announced and creating an article rather than a simple stub. Travellingcari (talk) 19:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Some details of the airline's operations are mentioned here.[14] Might be useful when sufficient information is found for article.Bthebest (talk) 22:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Flags again

What is the current feeling about flags in the destinations lists for airline articles. I noticed that stand alone destination articles like Air Canada destinations have flags, but when the destinations are part of the article like Zoom Airlines they are not included. Of course there are exceptions like Skyservice destinations and Montenegro Airlines. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

My take is that the flags should go. They add nothing to these lists, except possibly for excessive download time for those on slow net connections. --Russavia (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I personally don't see how they add anything except for minute amounts of color to an article. I wouldn't care about seeing them removed completely, but if we have to keep them they should be used only for the highest section titles. NcSchu(Talk) 17:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I would agree with User:NcSchu that they only really add colour/color to the articles and dont add any real value. Air Canada is an example of flag madness particularly including flags of all the states in the USA. MilborneOne (talk) 22:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that adding flags of the all "states" is rediculous, but adding the flags to each "country" isn't necessarily bad because it gives a better distinction amongst countries. Sox23 22:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't like them; it looks odd having both the flag and the bullet there, as a flag can basically serve the same purpose as a bullet point. I don't think they help much. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 01:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

User:RobNS is adding flags to all the destinations on Canadian airlines, I have reverted Zoom but he has done a few more!! MilborneOne (talk) 12:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

User:RobNS has reverted my change and put back the flags on Zoom Airlines he has commented on my talk page re Why remove the flagicons from ZOOM Airlines? Are we going to change ALL destination lists (Delta Airlines, etc?). It doesn't hurt, and many different pages of diverse categories have them. I say, if it adds some colour and, more importantly, clarifies information, then they are fine.. It needs to be reverted again - but just checking that the concesnus from the above discussion was no flags on destination list (or even infoboxes)? MilborneOne (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this discussion first took place about 18 months ago - and the consensus then was that the flags are not needed as they add no value. As then and discussion above, they should be removed. SempreVolando (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with a consensus on the subject. I was merely adding the flagicons to Canadian airlines since I live here, and I noticed other carriers around the world had them. Not sure why adding flags to Canadian airline destinations has somehow 'stirred things up.' I happen to think that the flagicons are attractive, and don't hurt. I would only ask then that people go through ALL airlines (like Delta, etc), and remove the flagicons there as well.--RobNS 20:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I reverted a bunch of these changes. I guess we need an effort to remove all of these since the inclusion logic appears to be, they are on one article so that should be on all. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
OK then, let's see the reaction you get when you start removing the flagicons from KLM, Delta and a host of other airlines. I really don't see why this is necessary. I mean who is this hurting? And why have this waited until my small and few changes to some Canadian airlines? Where was this group for the 'bigger fish' so to speak.--RobNS 20:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Rob, it isn't a result of anything you have or haven't done, but it is something which has obviously been going on with this project for a long time now. Whilst it isn't 'hurting' anyone per se, it can affect download times of pages for those people on slow connections. I am on a 8mb connection so it doesn't bother me all that much, but as WP is a resource for people from around the world, we have to remember that 56k connections (and sometimes WORSE) can be the norm for some people, and the flags only serve to increase download times for those people, whilst not adding anything but aesthetic value.--Russavia (talk) 20:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe I'm saying this, but at the end of the day it's Canadian airlines that have been reverted to have no flagicons. This is crazy! Why not change Air France, KLM, Delta Airlines, etc? I am the last person on Wiki to ever be confrontational, but this is to much. It's all or nothing people. Either somebody here has the courage to remove flagicons from 'the big boys' and countless other smaller airlines, or leave the Canadian ones alone until the issue has been universally decided (or implemented).--RobNS 20:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Please refer to KLM destinations, Delta Air Lines destinations, Tiger Airways destinations, etc and you will see that those articles have now been amended as well. This is not an anti-Canuck exercise, but does apply to all articles covered by this project. --Russavia (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Well Delta has been done. Remember that not every article is watched by every editor so that no every editor is aware of changes to every article. So please do not assume that there is some hidden agenda. Doing this by hand takes a while. So maybe someone can program AWB to quickly clean this up. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Madness! Oh well, keep going with it then, I guess the next victom for the artistically chalenged would be Lufthansa destinations, but you will have to go through almost all airline pages now. Have fun mate!--RobNS 20:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Your argument makes no sense when you can just as easily say the opposite: "not all destination pages have flags so why should any of them?". If other people have a problem with it they can speak up here as well, but the project consensus seems to be that we don't feel they add anything to the pages. You could help remove them, you know. NcSchu(Talk) 20:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

See my flag vote that I have just added to this page. Cheers.--RobNS 21:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I find it funny how some folks can actually remove the flags with the comment "Removed flags as per long standing consensus on WP:AIRLINE"[15][16]. What "long standing consensus" can there be, when the so-called concensus has only materialised a few hours ago?--Huaiwei (talk) 15:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, consensus was first reached on this issue in May 2006, then as above, and as below! So "long standing" is an apt description. SempreVolando (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I see. So a mysterious number of users adding those flags for almost two years versus three people believing they should be removed way back in May 2006 is considered "long-standing concensus"?--Huaiwei (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Flag vote - Super Tuesday edition!

OK people, let's have a vote on weather their should be flagicons on the airline destination pages. As a professional art director and magazine publisher, I think it adds to the lists, both in accuracy and aesthetics. DK Publishing from the UK has taught us that encyclopedias need not be dull, or simply lists. The flagicons are appearing all over the Wiki, and they seem to be more and more accepted as a colourful and informative graphic item, that quickly downloads too. I would agree on one stipulation though, and that is that they should be for COUNTRIES only, and not states or provinces (what is next, city flags?  ;-)).

YES. Flag of Canada Canada - Anyhow, my vote is, of course to keep them. I also want to join this group, as it seems to be a fun place.  ;-). See count my vote as a YES. --RobNS 21:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

NO - for the need of a vote and for a need for the flags per all the reasons already listed the other section. NcSchu(Talk) 21:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

NO for flags for reasons I stated above. YES to getting these destination lists referenced with third-party, reliable, verifiable sources so that they can survive an Afd based upon policy. Then let's consider flags. --Russavia (talk) 21:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

NO per arguments previously made on this talk page and those made during previous discussions on this topic. SempreVolando (talk) 21:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

NO per previous arguments and discussions against. MilborneOne (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

NO per previous discussions. Just because they're spreading all over Wikipedia (not just this project) doesn't mean they're a good idea. They may look neat but all the color can add to visual clutter and onscreen web resolution is really too low to see much detail. I'd also support redesigning the destination lists using a table similar to what's on Aeroflot, but that's another topic for discussion. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No to flags in destination lists in the traditional format (they are just plain ugly), but Yes in table formats (looks much more presentable this way).--Huaiwei (talk) 13:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

List of airlines in.... / List formats

I've checked trough the archive, and haven't been able to find anything on how lists of airlines should be formated, so I'd like to start a discussion on this. List of airlines is being divided up into smaller, more manageable, lists and a number of varieties has appeared.

  1. The most basic would be List of airlines in Angola which has as headers: AIRLINE, IATA, ICAO, CALLSIGN, and REMARKS.
  2. List of airlines in Singapore has the previous 4 plus CALLSIGN
  3. List of airlines in Iran has the 4 from the 1st option, plus AIRLINE (in [native language]), CALLSIGN , and BASE(S)
  4. List of airlines in Russia has the AIRLINE (in [native language]) in the AIRLINE column, and adds DOM. CODE (I don't know what that means).
  5. List of airlines in Serbia has Airline, ICAO, IATA, and Hub airport(s) but is also divided up by type of airline (Flag carrier, Air taxi, Charter, Cargo, Other)
  6. List of airlines in the United Kingdom has the same format as the previous, but replaces Hub airport(s) with Call sign.

There may be more.... Are all these columns necessary? Should that all be used in every list? My personal choice is AIRLINE, IATA, ICAO, CALLSIGN, plus AIRLINE (in [native language]) in the AIRLINE column and the divisions by type (Flag carrier, Air taxi, Charter, Cargo, Other). - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 05:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In regards to List of airlines in Russia, "DOMESTIC CODE" is the airline code as per the All-Russian standards, or GOST standards. You may notice from the list that ChukotAVIA does not have an IATA code, ICAO code or callsign, however, it does have a domestic code of АД. The domestic codes are an integral part of the Russian airline industry, as even airlines which have an IATA code, will often use their domestic code for ticketing, scheduling, etc, particularly for flights to other CIS countries. --Russavia (talk) 02:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, is this a one-off or will many different countries require country specific columns such as this? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Only airlines which come from one of the ex-Soviet states (with exception of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) use these codes. Airlines from say Arab speaking nations use only the Latin codes, and I know of no others that have specialised codes such as those in the CIS --Russavia (talk) 03:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Are domestic codes notable enough to be included in this list, for their sole purpose seems to be nothing more than assisting travellers?--Huaiwei (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely they are, as they are not solely to assist travellers (that is a side effect), but are assigned by state authorities as part of standards --Russavia (talk) 15:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
State authority usage as a direct reflection of international notability? Is this a matter of personal opinion of in accordance to WP:N? I remain completely unconvinced. All domestic codes, along with the "native language codes" should be removed for nothing more than listcruft and a result of fanboish behaviors gone overboard.--Huaiwei (talk) 13:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If you wish to get concensus on whether domestic codes on List of airlines of Russia and some of the other CIS airline List of airlines of articles which I've created over the last few days then please go ahead and gather that concensus. Being the fanboy that I am, I am willing to abide by any concensus which this group may come to. In fact, to head you off at the pass, I will instigate it myself. Thanks for your comments. --Russavia (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
First and most importantly, you gain concensus to include something in wikipedia based on Wikipedia:Notability, and not the other way round. I am a tad surprised that you need to be reminded on such fundementals especially when one reviews your editing (or shall I say deleting) history. As long as you fail to tell us just why those domestic codes are notable, they will be removed. Opinions of fanboys don't exactly count in concensus building, I recon?--Huaiwei (talk) 16:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If the codes are assigned by Russian/ex-CIS authorities and are locally widely used as flight identifiers (shouldn't be too hard to get a snapshot of a departures monitor/boarding pass to prove this?), then they're certainly notable. However, I'm a little surprised to see that the codes don't appear to be mentioned in Russian airline articles, even the Русский versions? Jpatokal (talk) 04:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Domodedovo Airport, Tolmachevo Airport, Vnukovo Airport and others can be checked for actual usage of these codes outside of a governmental setting. --Russavia (talk) 09:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
And why should we assume that just because local authorities implement a set of codes, it has to be notable worldwide to an extent that they are included in wikipedia? These codes are meaningless outside Russia or ex-CIS countries, make little sense to non-Russians, and their only purpose in that list is clearly to act as a travel guide. Has anyone tried to ascertain their global notability other than from local airport websites (in Russian)?--Huaiwei (talk) 09:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Don't need to show global notability, they are either notable or they are not. If global notability, as you are seeming to suggest, is the basis upon which information can be presented in articles, then I would question the existence of "Other offices" in this article, or even the existence of the article itself! One of the official languages of the ICAO is Russian, and as such, any organisation responsible for overseeing civil aviation in any country in the world has the right to create, and use, designations in any one of the official languages of the ICAO. The civil aviation authorities of the former Soviet Union, and the now independent countries of the CIS, have chosen to enact that right, and they are actively used. However, you will not find the All-Russian classifications being used outside of these countries, as each country has the right to use their own classification systems; that the majority of countries use 'Latin' does not exclude that these codes are at least notable to people in those countries, and should be included. --Russavia (talk) 10:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've created Template:Airlines list boilerplate, which can be subst'd to quickly start new airline list pages, and keep them uniform. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 01:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

While my command of the English language is not exemplary, may I just point out that linguistic concerns seems to have taken the back seat in the rush to create multiple lists. The cookie-cutter mass-produced lists all seem to follow the introduction of existing articles like List of airlines of Singapore, which goes "This is a list of airlines currently operating in Singapore". Erm, pardon me, but I think the number of airlines currently operating in Singapore would number over 80, and not just 7?--Huaiwei (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

What would be a better statement? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe the usual legalese is airlines currently domiciled in Singapore. Jpatokal (talk) 04:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Have changed to This is a list of airlines which have an Air Operator Certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (insert link to relevant CAA from the aforementioned CAA article - another list I have been working on). Changes were made to the Australian and Bulgarian article yesterday, and have done some more changes today. Hopefully others can make changes where possible, the priority for myself is to get these lists made up asap, as I only have access to the ICAO database for a very short time. --Russavia (talk) 08:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Either the above clutter, or a simple statement of "This is a list of airlines registered in XXXX" would have solved the problem as well. Your proposal is going to cause problems in the PRC list, for obvious reasons.--Huaiwei (talk) 09:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, "This is a list of airlines registered in XXXX" is even more problematic. What exactly does 'registered' mean? Registered as a company? In this case, British Airways could be listed as an airline of Australia, as it is registered in Australia as a company. It could also mean that Volga-Dnepr can be listed as an airline of the PRC, due to it being registered in the PRC. I have mentioned the PRC article in particular here, as concensus within this project is now needed due to what is going to be another content dispute. This section will be presented below. --Russavia (talk) 21:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Flagicons to be removed

Since the opinion here is to remove the beastly little flags, I will start working on a list of airlines that people here can go to, to remove flagicons. As a trained professional in visual communications and corporate identity, I can't in good conscience do this myself. However I do believe we should be consistent, and I know it means a lot to the members here, so here you will find a list of airline destinations with those evil little flags to be removed (it's a work in progress, so please be patient). We'll try and start with the 'A's first. Once you have 'fixed' the pages, please remove them from this list. Cheers! --RobNS 23:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Y Done. Keep 'em coming. SempreVolando (talk) 09:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Just finished a pass through Category:Airline destinations using WP:AWB and I think I took care of the rest. I did leave the flags in some of the table-based lists, such as Jetstar Asia Airways destinations, since as Huaiwei pointed out above, they do work better with the flags. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 03:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Start-ups a no-go?

Does LeisureJet airline exist? It was planned in 2004, but a quick google search comes up with nothing. Same with RMA Gold Airways.- Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 06:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think in the case of LeisureJet all the info is more than three years old it can be proded or deleted.MilborneOne (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that thay should be removed as they serve no purpose.Bthebest (talk) 17:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Lacking reliable sources they can be deleted. Probably under CSD A7. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • How about JumpJet? I came across it on someone's AfD recommendations page and I can find no new information on it. That said, there is information on a corporate charter airline that apparently has the same name. Travellingcari (talk) 18:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Transatlantic International Airlines

Just an FYI, Transatlantic International Airlines is up for deletion. I have no dog in this race, although I voted delete on account of non-existent sources, but thought some of you might want the heads up in the event there is any information and/or salvageable content. Travellingcari (talk) 19:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Cochalas airlines

Newish article looks like a hoax or virtual airline anybody have any info. MilborneOne (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Tagged for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#G3. I consider this an obvious hoax as this supposed airline doesn't fly to any of the major US airports the article claims it does. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Destinations and Defunct Airlines

I searched but didn't find evidence of consensus. I may have missed it. I'm currently working on Independence Air to clean it up and fix the citation issues. My question is whether we need the destinations for a now-defunct airline and if we do, should they be on a separate page as appears to be consensus for running airlines.

Go Fly doesn't have destinations (it didn't when I began work on it and I never added them in), nor do Ansett Australia or Allegheny Airlines. However, Command Airways and Empire Airlines (1976-1985) do. By no means is this an exhaustive sample, it's the first couple I saw in each. Thoughts?

Travellingcari (talk) 18:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

ETA I blew up the article, I can add the destinations back to their own page if they need to be somewhere. Travellingcari (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Hawaii

In airline destination lists Hawaii is listed in North America, but per the Hawaii article the state of Hawaii is in Oceania not North America. Shouldn't we list Hawaii in Oceania? pikdig (talk) 05:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Hawaii is an interesting case. I've never heard it considered part of Oceania before, though it is the northern point of the Polynesian Triangle and if you include Polynesia in your definition of Oceania, which the Oceania article appears to do, then it would make sense. I think Hawaii is typically grouped with North America since it is part of the United States, which of course makes up a major part of North America. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Hawaii is one of fifty United States. Since the United States ls listed in North America, it should fall under: 1) North America. A) United States. i) Hawaii. Sox23 19:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Whatever the result here, it should also apply to Puerto Rico, Guam, United States Virgin Islands, and some of the other territories. I guess the question is two fold:
  1. Do we list the destination when a normal reader would expect to find it; or
  2. Do we list it based on where most the the other similar places are listed.
I know there is a difference between a state and a territory, but I don't think that we have a guideline to follow. I recall this being a big discussion for the Canary Islands at one time. As we do this, keep in mind that places like Martinique are a part of France, basically the equivalent of a state in the US. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Guys come on. Hawaii is a STATE. Puerto Rico and Guam are not a part of the 50 United STATES so they're not listed under "United States." Additionally, note 19 on the Oceania page is as follows [referring to Polynesia]: "Excludes the US state of Hawaii, which is distant from the North American landmass in the Pacific Ocean, and Easter Island, a territory of Chile in South America." Sox23 20:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Delta Connection POV pushing?

I don't know if this is indicitive of what the project wants on it's pages, that up to y'all. I don't see the ICAOIATA codes as being necessary, but this guy has a bias agaisnt Delta behind his additions, as his summary makes obvious. I'm not warring with him over it, as I really don't know what the norm is here. Thanks from a WP:AIR guy. - BillCJ (talk) 00:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

No, we don't need IATA codes there. It adds absolutely nothing. Listing the carriers that operate as Delta Connection is sufficient. This particular anonymous editor (who shows up with a few similar dynamic IPs) is obsessed with this stuff. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 00:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

THanks. I had a look at his latest IP's talk page, and I see what you mean. Glad to know my gut instinct was right about somthing being wrong with this. - BillCJ (talk) 00:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion that has exploded from this between me and Mr. Anonymous on Talk:Delta Connection has gone all over the place, but leads to some rather "interesting" insights on his thought process. This guy definitely has an agenda. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 21:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

USALatin Sky

Just stumbled across this: USALatin Sky. A once sentence article on what appears to be a travel agency or something. I think fails WP:CSD#A7 currently, but I figured I'd let the project members take a look before tagging it. Maybe merge and redirect into ATA Airlines? -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 06:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say merge into ATA Airlines. Sox23 22:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I have made a section in the TZ article for USALatin Sky. I have also redirected "USALatin Sky" to that section of the ATA Article. Sox23 22:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Excessive categories?

We have an editor adding airlines to the transportation category for many of the cities where the airline operates. The same editor also was doing this for the economy categories. While the airports themselves probably belong in the transportation category, I don't see how individual airlines would belong even if the have a hub in a location. See US Airways for an example. I think all of these should be removed from the airline categories. Any reasons that these adds make sense? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Doesnt make sense and I agree - transportation cats should be for airports not very airline that visits them. MilborneOne (talk) 22:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to agree. Airlines that serve a couple hundred destinations would end up being in a couple hundred categories. If we had to, I could see keeping airlines in hub city categories (i.e. US Airways in Category:Transportation in Phoenix) but since those categories seem more useful for getting *around* the city, I would still argue against it. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Hubs on the surface might appear to be a factor. However a hub tends to move people through the airport and as a result doesn't really contribute to the local transportation picture. But then, having a hub may increase the number of flights and destinations. But does that need a mention in a city transportation category? I think it best to not even consider hubs for inclusion in categories like this. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Grand China Air

There are now separate articles for Hainan Airlines (IATA:HN), Grand China Air (no code?) and Grand China Airlines (IATA:GS). As far as I can work this out, GS ("Grand China Express Air") is a feeder carrier for Hainan, which in turn is a part of a new merged company called Grand China Air, which isn't actually flying anywhere under its own name yet and their website just redirects to Hainan for time being. Did I get this right, and how to best represent it? Jpatokal (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, confusing. I wonder if Grand China Air is more of a holding company or brand or marketing name? Vegaswikian (talk) 00:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Aloha Airlines

Looks like this article needs protection. Every few hours, someone changes "is" to "was" when this airline is still supposedly operating as a cargo carrier.HkCaGu (talk) 08:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

New and anon accounts can not edit it for a while. Let's see if that helps. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

British Caledonian in the 1970s

Anyone bored? This was apparently created by a merge and it's basically a dump of one source. There appear to be a number of available sources, but I don't honestly know where to start. TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 17:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Aviation navigation box

{{airlistbox}} appears in many airline articles. It is an aviation navigation box and does not aid in navigation within airline articles. Many countries are creating country specific navigation boxes. I think that we should remove this extra navbox when editing articles and insert an airline specific one if available. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The aviation navigation box is a WikiProject Aviation nav box to allow users to access any part of the Aviation project. It is added to all Aviation articles. I see that users have started to remove this navbox from airline articles despite no consensus on this page to remove them! MilborneOne (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
While Wikipedia:Navigational templates is only an essay, it states 'A navigational template is a grouping of links used in multiple related articles for the purposes of facilitating navigation between those articles.' Since the navbox in question is clearly not used for that purpose, then I think we can discuss how it is being used. I may just move this discussion over the aviation also, but this project can make a decision on it's own. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - You could argue that all aviation articles are related! - Probably do no harm to have a wider discussion - I agree that it is not that useful in airlines but just wanted to make the point that it has been removed from airline articles in the last few days without any form of project consensus. MilborneOne (talk) 21:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
In most non-aviation articles I have come across, navboxes usually are added to an artitle with the article itself being an entry within that navbox, for example, Star Alliance navboxes for all Star Alliance members, Airlines of the US Naxboxes for all US-registered airlines, etc. Boxes to aid general navigation are typically infobox-styled. See Elections in Malaysia for an example of how each navigation box is used.--Huaiwei (talk) 04:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

US Airways a "low cost carrier?

I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of other editors about the assertion in the article US Airways that it is a low-cost airline. It seems to me that the sources linked to do not really support this assertion; the airline's business model and cost structure are very different from those of easyJet or Southwest (as at least one of the sources actually indicates). ProhibitOnions (T) 22:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, as has been pointed out repeatedly, there really is no single "low-cost" business model. Southwest has a different business model from Ryanair, which has a different business model from easyJet, which has a different business model from jetBlue, which has a different business model from US Airways, which has a different business model from Frontier, which has a different business model from AirTran, which has a different business model from Skybus (RIP)... the list goes on.
If you think that Southwest and easyJet have the same business model... then you really need to study the two carriers more closely, because they differ significantly in their pricing, on-board service, passenger accommodations and flight/travel structures.
US Airways is the corporate continuation of America West Airlines, which was unequivocally and undoubtedly a low-cost carrier. AWA's management runs US Airways, is implementing ex-AWA pricing structures, marketing programs and operational controls. Yet AWA and US were not so different from one another before the merger. Both had hub-and-spoke structures, both had subcontracted small jet provider Express operations, both had relatively diverse fleets (AWA: 732/733s, 752s, A319/20s), both had or were preparing to operate ETOPS/extended overwater flights (AWA was going to launch trans-Pacific Hawaii flights whether the merger happened or not - and of course, even flew to Japan for a short time with a 747-200.) and both had significant international operations. In fact, US Airways actually had *lower* crew wage costs than AWA, pre-merger, which is one of the stumbling blocks to final true merging of all the employees.
I have provided a number of sources - media, government, academic - which refer to US Airways as a low-cost carrier. That it does not fit someone's preconceived mold of "easyJet/Southwest = LCC" is neither here nor there. FCYTravis (talk) 22:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually why is this coming up again and now? This was resolved months ago. What has changed to make the classification of the airline different? If the answer is nothing, then why is it being discussed. If there is new information, then bring it to the table. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I picked one of the 5(!) sources at random. A couple of seconds with the search function found the following in that source: "America West has merged with US Airways to become the nation's largest low-cost carrier. The airline will operate under US Airway's name...". In what way does this not support the assertion? --BrucePodger (talk) 22:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, the United States Bureau of Transportation Statistics reference states this about the merged airline (bold added by me): "The merged airline, which is listed in the low-cost category, reported 32,674 FTEs for January 2008." I'd say this is a non-issue. NcSchu(Talk) 00:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It's only been listed that way due to its use of America West's certification following its purchase of US Airways (America West, a kinda-sorta LCC, was technically the surviving entity); you will read in this link that in previous years US Airways was always listed as a network carrier, and may well be reassigned to that category. The academic paper Bruce mentions first describes US Airways as a troubled "legacy carrier"; the sentence he quotes is only a statement of intent, and it's followed by "Many remain skeptical that this merger will lead to success given that US Airways has been in bankruptcy twice in the last decade and profitability has recently eluded America West. For a time the airlines will continue to operate separately." In other words, it hasn't happened yet, and may not. The other sources in the article linked to don't support this assertion. BusinessWeek describes US Airways as a "legacy carrier" that has resorted to fare slashing on a handful of routes as a last-ditch effort to drum up business. The Unisys article describes US Airways as a "network carrier" (ie, not an LCC), that is probably doomed unless it can reduce its costs, which are much higher than those of the low-cost airlines. And a Las Vegas newspaper article about another airline that mentions US Airways peripherally in a throwaway sentence is weak indeed.
If any airline can be a "low-cost carrier," the term is meaningless. US Airways certainly behaves like a legacy carrier (hub-and-spoke operations, alliance membership, codesharing, seat classes, reserved seats, lounges, international operations, fleet of various aircraft) and BusinessWeek indicates that its costs aren't particularly low; simply slashing fares on a few routes doesn't make them an LCC (every flailing legacy carrier does this). If there really is a process going on of transforming the airline into a low-cost carrier, this needs to be mentioned, although intent and advertising slogans don't make US Airways an LCC. As I mentioned on the talk page, I'd have no objection to phrasing along the lines of "Since the merger, the combined airline asserts it is a low-cost carrier" and to leave this discussion for later in the article. What's the problem with calling an airline an airline in the intro? ProhibitOnions (T) 08:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I want a source for your assertion that AWA was "a kinda-sorta LCC." What made it not an LCC? Who ever said that AWA was not an LCC?
Your unsourced speculation that US Airways "may well be reassigned to that category" is again utterly irrelevant. The fact is, it has not been reassigned to that category. The fact is, US Airways is repeatedly referred to as an LCC in reliable sources, including academic papers, government documents and media sources. The Las Vegas newspaper article is hardly a throwaway mention - it's in an article about the two largest carriers at LAS, WN and US.
As for your assertion that "hub and spoke, codesharing, seat classes, reserved seats, international operations, fleet of various aircraft" make a carrier not an LCC, that essentially eliminates every single LCC in the United States - including Southwest Airlines, which was party to a codeshare agreement with ATA Airlines up until the latter's bankruptcy last week.
Frontier, jetBlue and AirTran operate hub-and-spoke networks.
Spirit and AirTran offer premium-cabin seating.
Frontier, jetBlue and AirTran all offer reserved seats.
Frontier, JetBlue, AirTran and Spirit operate international services.
Frontier, jetBlue and AirTran operate a varied fleet of aircraft - including turboprops, in Frontier's case.
Frontier has codesharing agreements with a contracted small jet provider and with a small regional airline. AirTran used to have a codeshared/contracted small jet provider. jetBlue has codeshares. As mentioned, WN formerly codeshared with ATA.
Frontier and AirTran have a frequent-flyer agreement allowing for mutual earning and redemption on both carriers.
So, there you have it. By your standards, there are no low-cost carriers in the United States - the country that invented the LCC. I guess they don't exist.
I further note that the original LCC, Pacific Southwest Airlines, definitely had a varied fleet - everything from Electras to 727s to MD-80s and BAe-146s. PSA was merged into... that's right, US Airways. Odd how things come around in circles.
There's a clear consensus here that there is more than enough sourcing to refer to US Airways as an LCC. You asked for more opinions, and you got them. That none of them agree with you is neither here nor there. I'm done here. FCYTravis (talk) 09:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
No, there is no clear consensus on this topic. I think Low-cost carrier puts its best: "US Airways brands itself as a low-cost carrier, but has the same features and setup as the other five major carriers in the United States." In what ways is US Airways different from (that is, more LCC-like than) the legacies? Jpatokal (talk) 11:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Whether or not they act like one, we can't just ignore the reliable sources that state it's registered in some LCC category, as the government reference seems to suggest. If the airline has chosen to put itself into the category we can't fight it. That said US does have more shared characteristics with legacy carriers than with LCCs, but in the changing aviation market those distinctions are quickly going away. We have also seen more LCCs getting larger aircraft and competing in long-haul international operations (which is what I believe ProhibitOnions was talking about). I think, if anything, we should definitely note that it used to be a legacy carrier, but has identified itself as a LCC after the merger with AWA. NcSchu(Talk) 12:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Yep, this is more or less all I'm asking for. There are plenty of other sources that define US as a legacy carrier; I was simply challenging the weakness of the five added by User:FCYTravis, who refuses to compromise on the phrasing. I could just as easily pick five articles that call US a legacy carrier and make no reference to LCCs at all, but don't take my word for it, run a Google search yourself; it's certainly an ambiguous situation, to say the least. But to call the airline an LCC without qualification in the intro is to do a disservice to the reader. Even if it were now a clear-cut case of one (which, I believe, it is not), the fact that it was categorized as a network carrier until a year ago should mean this would be a qualified statement at best, and the rapid transformation of US Airways into an LCC would itself be notable. The description used in the Low-cost carrier article is a good one; I'd like is to see something similar in the US Airways article. That's all. ProhibitOnions (T) 12:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what we know to be true or false, it depends on what reliable sources tell us by using WP:V as the yardstick. What US Airways call themselves is quite irrelevant, as it basically needs to be published to a WP:SELFPUB source. If there are sources that say it is a low-cost carrier, and there are sources which say it isn't, to have low-cost airline in the lead of the article is only going to make it a contentious issue. I would be moving it out of the lead, and presenting in the text the 2 opposing trains of thought; as it is a business model which is in question, I would be consulting not only news and government sources, but mostly business sources such as Forbes, Dow Jones, and other sources which specialise in financial and business analysis. --Россавиа Диалог 12:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

<deindent for clarity>I agree there should be discussion of the issue in the article, but it belongs in the lede - unless we're going to remove it from the lede of all other LCCs. There are more than enough sources - again, government, media, academic - to support the fact that US Airways (being the descendant of America West) is an LCC. There is some debate about how far toward LCC they have gone - but they are an LCC. I have split the "airline" link off the "low-cost airline" pipe, so that the (valid) issue of pure "airline" not being linked in the first line, is solved. I'm going to do that with the rest of the LCC airline articles as well.

The reason for being moved into the LCC category only now despite the fact that the US Airways merger took place in 2005, is that the operating certificates were not merged until 2007. There's no "rapid transformation" into an LCC - to suggest that that is the case, is misleading at best. If you look at the history, US Airways has been moving (in fits and starts) toward a stripped-down, low-operating-cost carrier since its 2002 trip to bankruptcy court. (After BK 1, they shed lots of planes, rationalized the fleet structure, etc.) That was only reinforced by its second trip to bankruptcy court in 2004. The fact that it was then bought by a low-cost carrier, merged into that low-cost carrier (AWA is the surviving corporate structure, which was then renamed US Airways) and the process of LCC-ization intensified, is one of the stranger sets of occurrences in airline history. (Then again, US Airways is pretty much the poster child for strange stuff in the industry.)

All of this should be mentioned in the article; it will make an interesting segment.

Looking over that Unisys document, I'm really not sure where it came from, but it's not a particularly helpful source because it's from 2003. It seems to be talking about US Airways right after emergence from the first bankruptcy - which doesn't really help tell us anything about today's operations. FCYTravis (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Pinnacle Airlines

I have just removed (twice) three incidents on the Pinnacle Airlines that are not notable, an IP user has reverted each time. Any help or opinions welcome. MilborneOne (talk) 18:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You should comment on the editor's talk page and provide a link to the Pinnacle Airlines talk page. Probably a new editor who doesn't know where to talk to you about the issue. --Matt (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks I have left a message on the IP users talk page although I suspect he has morphed into User:Awseft. MilborneOne (talk) 19:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Not a bad idea to contact that editor too. FYI - I agree about the incidents added being relatively non notable. --Matt (talk) 20:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Airline

Can anyone figure out why articles with this template now have a ton of white space at the beginning of the article? Vegaswikian (talk) 08:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

For the cause, see my comments at Template talk:Infobox Airline#Recent edits causing white space above template. I see you also reverted the changes made by User:Jamcib, but then undid your edit. If your revert did not appear to work, it was probably because the template needed to be purged to replace the older cached copy. -- Zyxw (talk) 09:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Destinations - Pending Government Approval

I don't see anything on either this wikiproject page nor WP:AIRPORTS about destinations that are pending government approval. Do we have any thoughts on whether it is appropriate to list them on airline and airport destination lists? What is bringing this up is the inclusion of Philippine Airlines proposed service to San Diego International Airport. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 15:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I think that as long as there are reliable sources, this can be listed and noted as pending government approval [begins June 2010, pending government approval]]. However it is condition on the reliable sources being support that a valid application has been filed with all required agencies. An airline stating that they intend to file or saying that they intend to file should not be listed. One question, what if the article says that the application is likely to be rejected for any reason? Does it still get listed? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
No one can predict the future no matter what expertise one claims to have, so I don't think the probability of government approval being granted should ever be considered. If there is a source stating that such a route will exist, but must go through government approval first, then it can be added. NcSchu(Talk) 19:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I think we are basically in agreement. It is a matter of clear wording so that there is no confusion. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)