Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports

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Merge discussion at Talk:Lannion–Côte de Granit Airport

There is a request to merge Lannion Airfield into Lannion–Côte de Granit Airport as coverage of the same topic, if it interests anybody here. ASUKITE 21:22, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flight trackers

Is a flight tracker a reliable source for a connection? The Banner talk 14:41, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is in reference to Talk:Nashville International Airport#Vacation Express. I'd say no since they only follow a single plane once. Ought to indicate it's a regularly scheduled flight. Reywas92^Talk 16:27, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Service resumptions

I am confused on when an airline announces a route, how do we know if it is a resumption of service or if it is a new route? Most airlines will announce a route as “new” when in reality it is not. Jz0610 (talk) 16:09, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Who cares? Is it more than a semantical matter? Important is to know the current situation, history is for historicians. Jan olieslagers (talk) 18:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, we go by what the source says. If the source says resumption then use "resumes" if the source says it is a new route then use "begins". 2600:1700:8544:D000:9D0E:3239:A3E:70F8 (talk) 18:53, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Erobran and the issue with exact start dates

This user continues to add that Turkish Airlines will start service between Istanbul and Lima starting in June of next year. Me and several other editors have removed it referring him to the project page and discussion based on consensus but he continues to argue against it. Jz0610 (talk) 16:12, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where? Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:39, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jan olieslagers: I think at Jorge Chávez International Airport and Istanbul Airport if that's what you mean where. 2600:1700:8544:D000:9D0E:3239:A3E:70F8 (talk) 18:52, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Busiest international routes from *** section

Airport pages use International_Report_Passengers from the US Department of Transportation for the Busiest international routes sections. The data listed on the International_Report_Passengers page is in different format, vs what is found on the wikipedia page. What is the best way to obtain the data for that section? The "Busiest domestic routes from ***" section is just copying numbers over. Thanks. Dermoid (talk) 20:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Phoenix airport renaming

The former "Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport" has dropped Phoenix from its name and now calls itself just "Mesa Gateway Airport". This presents an opportunity to stop using the disambiguated "Phoenix–Sky Harbor" and "Phoenix/Mesa" in destination tables in favor of the simpler "Phoenix" and "Mesa". @VenFlyer98: pointed out that the Mesa airport still serves the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and therefore in accordance with WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT should continue to be include. However, I’ll point out that it’s hardly a rule we closely follow. I see this as akin to a situation like Burbank or Long Beach airports which serve the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, yet are listed under their own city names not "Los Angeles/Burbank" or "Los Angeles/Long Beach". Furthermore, even if they win their legal case, I doubt we will begin to list Oakland International Airport as "San Francisco/Oakland". RickyCourtney (talk) 21:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Airline and destination tables

Our standards say airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. Over on the LAX page several editors including @Pmbma and @The Banner have been pressing this issue by tagging the table with several CN tags. To be clear, I don’t oppose them doing as such, the conversation needs to be had. My question at this point is, is there even an independent, reliable, secondary source for this information? The one I know of is LexisNexis's Cirium, a private data firm, but I don’t have the ~$30,000/year laying around to pay for an account. So unless we can convince the Wikipedia Library to add it as a source, that’s probably not an option. RickyCourtney (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really want to be a monster jumping on top of people.... but if this policy is to be applied to airports in Europe, then we should be consistent and apply it globally - i.e. all 7 continents, not just 1. My adding the citation-needed tag to just a few airlines on a handful of airports, is to force the conversation - in the past it's been a small number of people getting involved in debate - it really needs to be a lot of people voting on this. A very good starting point of independent data that is not published by either the airline or airport is https://www.aeroroutes.com (no, not advertising, I mention it just as a free source of info that I know to be reliable). You can also try digging out an old paper copy of the OAG timetable from a good reference or university library - you'll likely find one in a city with over a million people. I imagine that good libraries may also have access to the web version of the OAG timetable (yes, this will cost money) - but I'm not sure how we regard this as a reference. That said, www.aeroroutes.com and the OAG paper timetable are not always enough, so one needs to think about what to do when there are gaps - sometimes the websites of local newspapers will fill in some of the gaps, but not always. Do we prefer to make wikipedia fully-independently-referenced or do we prefer wikipedia to be complete... we can't have both. In the meantime, I'd propose we have a 3 month or 6 month freeze on deleting routes in airport-destination tables (unless you are absolutely certain that a route is no longer flown - maybe verify via airline website ?) so that everybody has time to try to fill in the gaps. Pmbma (talk) 22:11, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Has aeroroutes.com been through the process at WP:RS/N? From my quick look over it seems to be a site run by one person, which doesn’t normally pass as a reliable source. OAG would be a wonderful source, but again as a private data broker, charges huge subscription fees. I guess my point is, perhaps if we are going to impose this requirement, the Wikipedia library will need to invest in access to one of these data sources. RickyCourtney (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If aeroroutes.com is not acceptable as a reliable source to wikipedia, then we have a problem. I've had email dialogue in the past with the person who runs aeroroutes.com - he has a subscription to some data source and essentially publishes out what he thinks is interesting data from it. OAG were publishing paper timetables until about 2013 - will include many (but not all) stable routes that have been flown by the same airline for years. Getting access to the OAG website is likely to be harder when talking to a library with limited resources. Pmbma (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been emailing OAG today - their global head office is about 40 mins drive from my home. They seem willing to sell something for significantly less than US$30,000 - but I'm not sure that the person I'm emailing has sufficient knowledge of the products they sell. :-) They've realised that somebody with a non-corporate email is not going to bring in megabucks sales so they're not exactly rushing to respond to me. Is there potentially budget for a little bit of money from Wikipedia for something like single month access ? Essentially we use this as a way of back-filling all the missing references, and then in future we require new entries in Airport/Destination tables to be populated with a reference ? OAG are not going to be giving out a perpetual website licence though ! Sort of a first-time, last-time fix the problems and then be strict in the future ? Pmbma (talk) 19:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best bet would be to engage with The Wikipedia Library. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 19:19, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Fully-independently-referenced" Why in the world would you want or need that? Wikipedia has an enormous amount of content that is not independently referenced, about all sorts of topics, which is perfectly fine! The concern is that primary sources may in some cases be biased or incomplete so they should be used with care. That's not an issue here for something so simple and straightforward. This is also not a notability issue. Reywas92^Talk 02:39, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Simple: to build a reliable, verifiable encyclopedia. And that is a goal to pursue, even when it takes a long time. We choose to go to the Moon. The Banner talk 03:15, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If American Airlines says they fly from Chicago to Los Angeles, that is reliable and verifible. I don't need a newspaper or whatever to write an article to restate that for our mention of it to be accurate and reputable. Reywas92^Talk 23:29, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The airline is a primary source and therefore does not meet the standard of an independent, reliable, secondary source. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 18:40, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, newspaper articles - despite its limitations - qualify as independent sources. For the moment, I am only tagging charters, seasonal charters and seasonal flights. I do that in the hope that these are the best documented (i.e. announced) flights. The Banner talk 00:42, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't believe we should have destination tables in airport articles at all. Destinations are a property of the airlines, not of the airports. The airport doesn't fly to those destinations or connect to any of them, the airlines that choose to fly out of the airport do and those destinations are not in the airport's control or decision making processes. They really have nothing to do with the airport and everything to do with the airline. Canterbury Tail talk 03:24, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the exact opposite. I think the RfC which decided that was poorly decided and there's no problem with these at all. SportingFlyer T·C 03:26, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, I can not be bothered too much about the destination lists. I try to uphold the current WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT but have my reservations. Reservations regarding professionals working in the field editing on their own knowledge. And reservations - what I am still looking into - that there seems to be a connection between unsourced destinations and low-cost airlines. The Banner talk 19:49, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See for an example this edit, in my opinion vandalism. The Banner talk 09:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm (prety much single-handedly - with the exception of editor Johnj1995) since autumn 2024 going through all airlines that fly to or from Europe to try to add independently-published references to Airline/Destination tables to ALL airports in Europe and many in other countries where no independent reference already exists - i.e. backfilling where people in the past didn't add a reference or used the airport or airline website as a reference because it was not considered necessary until recently. I counted over 100 airlines, and am working my way through - done about 30 airlines, another 70 airlines for which independent sources need to be added. I also have a full time job in order to earn money to allow me to buy food. I see plenty of editors in the last 12 months trying to add new routes to Airline/Destination tables but having their edits undone because the reference was missing or not considered independent. Doing a job well takes time.Pmbma (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yet airports still typically provide listings of destinations on their own websites, announce and promote routes, and work with airlines to get new routes in some cases. See pages like [1][2][3][4]. Even if the airport management itself isn't itself deciding where its tenants go, it's laughable to suggest it's irrelevant. Reywas92^Talk 23:39, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The airport is a primary source and therefore does not meet the standard of an independent, reliable, secondary source. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 18:39, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like aeroroutes is a reliable site. Similar to ishrionaviation.com. They both are independent and widely sourced. The unfortunate fact is some routes are not covered by newspapers, especially cancellations to less popular areas. I also feel that paid independent websites should be allowed. While less than ideal, airport websites should be used as a last resort. Lastly, the destination section should definitely stay. Dermoid (talk) 16:40, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both aeroroutes and ishrionaviation would likely fail a reliable sources review for being self-published sources. To be counted as a reliable source, a self-published author must be an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Short of that, these small sites fail due to a lack of meaningful editorial oversight. In other words, there's no editors checking their work before publication. The use of airport websites has been rejected as they are a primary source. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're being a bit harsh on aeroroutes.com - the person publishing previously worked for aviationweek.com from 2007 to 2020 - see https://www.aeroroutes.com/about for more of a bio. He also previously published at routesonline.com - I'd say that 13 years at AviationWeek and 3 years of publishing on his own (and very rarely making a mistake - and publishing corrections when he does make a mistake - see https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/250103-tk2q25sin) would count as a subject matter expert. We're not talking about people publishing fake medical info that people who can't afford doctors use to self-diagnose. If you reject anything other than A++ grade from unpaid volunteers and provide no budget to commercial data when you reject the free sources of (generally reliable) data, then you typically reject everything. Even charities have to pay to keep the building warm in winter where they do their good cause. We have to live in a real world. Pmbma (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just sharing how these RS reviews typically go down. Now, there may be an exception here as a subject-matter expert, but that's a somewhat subjective determination. RickyCourtney (talk) 18:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's already consensus that adding or updating routes (them being converted to seasonal/charter or will soon no longer be operated) must have sources. Also I've saw that on WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH, that obvious facts such as "Paris is the capital of France" does not need to be sourced and even if no sources it is cited it won't be counted as original research/unsourced content, also these information have already been there for years and no one else has already done it so I believe that we don't need to add citation tags to all of them, yes if we have found sources we should add them, but adding citation tag on routes that obviously exist like AA operating Los Angeles to London Heathrow are unnecessary because they obviously exist, my opinion would be to focus more on less popular routes like Etihad Airways operating Osaka to Abu Dhabi Metrosfan (talk) 14:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A person living in Osaka may be very aware, or at least very willing to believe that Etihad fly to Abu Dhabi. A person living in Los Angeles may not be aware of Etihad flying this route. Who is to decide what routes obviously exist and which do not ? Pmbma (talk) 14:49, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An option that I saw suggested online was to use data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/ontime/Departures.aspx. They provide the departure times for all US-flagged carriers from US airports which gives you a backdoor method of verifying schedules. Of course, this doesn't help for the non-US-flagged carriers operating from US airports and it does little to help our friends outside of the US. According to my research, OAG remains the industry clearinghouse for schedule data. Airlines upload their schedules to OAG, which then charges fees to run reports for clients. As one poster put it, "There is no free and reliable source of flight schedules." -- RickyCourtney (talk) 20:21, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like there is no free easily accessible website that includes current destinations. As long as WP:AFG, is utilized, then destinations from aeroroutes, ishrionaviation, paid sites, and airport sites should be allowed. Dermoid (talk) 22:38, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Aeroroutes, it seems like the information is coming from a reliable place, but it would probably be a problem with WP:UGC. Ishrion is 100% a WP:UGC as it’s a personal blog. I have spoken to the creator of the site and they get their information directly from looking up schedules, not from a source like OAG so I find it largely unacceptable as a source. VenFlyer98 (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Citation tags for every destination

I’m reopening this discussion because the previous one above became too cluttered and veered off topic, and no consensus has been reached yet. @The Banner has been adding citation tags to every destination without references in several airport articles. While I agree that reliable references are important and should be added if possible, I don't think we need to add it for every existing destination, particularly the very obvious ones. For example, the article for SIN mentions that QF operates the LHR-SIN-SYD route, aka the kangaroo route. While there may not be a specific reliable source stating the route is still in operation, we know very well the route has been operating since 1934 and is still in service. This is a very well-known route, and there would be widespread news coverage if QF announced its closure. Unless there is a reliable source indicating the route has been terminated, I believe it can remain as is.

Citation tags can be added if the route is operated by a lesser-known airline that does not typically announce route openings or closures publicly, such as low-cost carriers like Lion Air in Indonesia. Cal1407 (talk) 14:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cc: @Metrosfan Cal1407 (talk) 14:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cal1407 incase if you don't know,there's a similar discussion for the topic you wanted to address that already existed below, you may check and answer there. Metrosfan (talk) 14:09, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need a discussion for this, there's already consensus that adding or updating routes (them being converted to seasonal/charter or will soon no longer be operated) must have sources, for your part about "should remain as it is", I would say it's not "should", it's "can". Also I've saw that on WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH, that obvious facts such as "Paris is the capital of France" does not need to be sourced and even if no sources it is cited it won't be counted as original research/unsourced content, also these information have already been there for years and no one else has already done it so I believe that we don't need to add citation tags to all of them Metrosfan (talk) 14:08, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My bad, thanks for the correction. I have changed "should" to "can". And also thanks for bringing up WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. It reinforces my point.

I'm bringing this up again because @The Banner continues to insist on adding citation tags for every destination without a reference. This will only clutter the table. Cal1407 (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V and WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT are irrelevant to you? The Banner talk 15:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 17#RfC about references for the "Airlines and destinations" tables found consensus that timetables are acceptable references – these should be used to provide verification and reduce clutter. This is already done at many articles like John F. Kennedy International Airport#Passenger. This is pretty basic information, it's not statistics, synthesis, or controversial claims that are likely to be challenged or will be particularly harmful if they become out of date. Reywas92^Talk 15:49, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is indeed a RFC from 2017. But it is superseded by this 2023 RFC: RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles. The Banner talk 16:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't mean timetables may not be used. Doesn't mean timetables don't verify the information. Additional sources are great, but these are also still permitted and are better than adding scores of cn tags. Reywas92^Talk 18:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We should not assume the readers know what the kangaroo route is, let alone whether it is still running. CMD (talk) 16:18, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]