Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airlines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Archives 2 Mass changing of fleet size 3 Airline destinations afd (again) 4 Merge: Marco Polo Club to Cathay Pacific 5 Assessment 6 New WikiProject Concerning Defunct Airlines 7 Aviation template 8 Frequent Flyer Programs (revisited) 9 Ryanair FAR 10 A table for destination page 11 Frontier Airlines routes 12 Wikipedia Day Awards 13 Category:Braniff Flights 14 I'm confused 15 User Problem with Listening to Rules 16 Livingston Airline Destinations 17 Airline destinations AFD (all of them) 18 Fleet info 19 Open-jaw ticket 20 Establishment Date Categories 21 Crash naming proposal 22 OTA tfd 23 Images in articles 24 Request for Comment 25 Possible new wikiproject - Wikiproject Aviation 26 Navboxes formatting 27 A Single Project Banner for use by all aviation related projects 28 Retired Fleets? 29 Cebu Pacific 30 Category:Airports by continent 31 Mass change of airline fleet size and orders statistics 32 Article stability 33 Collaboration of the month

[edit] Archives

• Archive 1 through 12:37, 13 November 2006

[edit] Mass changing of fleet size

I'm away to go offline, but have just noticed 68.158.41.166 (talk • contribs) making changes to many airline articles to change the fleet size in the infobox. Can somebody just eyeball these to make sure the changes are valid, i've got a feeling that might not be since they're a fair bit off the existing numbers. Thanks/wangi 23:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Again I am very concerned about these changes, which are on-going (see 68.158.69.209 (talk • contribs)). Especially with respect to WP:V. This is an important matter, we need to ensure fleet numbers in airline articles are properly referenced. Thanks/wangi 00:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The US one I looked at had number for US and HP that when added together did not equal the total provided. I guess we need to start putting warnings on the talk page and then blocking that IP. I have not done a block on an anon IP, so I'm not sure of the process. The IP traces back to BellSouth.net with the comment 'For Abuse Issues, email abuse@bellsouth.net. NO ATTACHMENTS. Include IP address, time/date, message header, and attack logs. Vegaswikian 04:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Airline destinations afd (again)

Someone has renominated airline destinations for afd after it was kept in a decision two weeks ago. If you are interested in this, please join in the discussion. DB (talk) 20:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge: Marco Polo Club to Cathay Pacific

While the afd discussion for the Marco Polo Club article resulted in a merge/redirect, there was little discussion on the deletion page, so I decided to redo this and put up a merge request. I am proposing that the Marco Polo Club (Cathay Pacific's FFP) article be merged into the Cathay article. Please weigh in if you have an opinion. DB (talk) 07:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

Should we start assessing articles? DB (talk) 06:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New WikiProject Concerning Defunct Airlines

Hello folks! I have begun a WikiProject on bettering the articles on defunct airlines, most notably regional airlines which got swallowed up by the larger airlines following the Airline Deregulation Act. Also within the scope of this project are airports which were served by these defunct airlines that no longer have scheduled air service such as Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport in Glens Falls, New York, or have limited EAS service such as Massena International Airport in Massena.

The project is in the very beginning stages and I need all the help I can get. Basically, all articles in the end need to have former destinations, and I would like them to have past fleet, logos, and a brief history up to their collapse if possible.

Check out the Defunct Airlines WikiProject. It is in its very early stages. Thanks so much, hope to see you there! -Jondude11 07:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aviation template

After making a minor edit on the British Airways page, I noticed that an editor had deleted the Aviation Template ({airlistbox}) without explanation, so I reverted it. It appears the user has removed the template from many other airline pages as well, though I have not reverted them as yet. I don't want to get into a revert war, especially on an article from another project. Is there a policy on the inclusion of the {airlistbox} template on Airline pages? I know it is standard on WP:AIR pages, but I could not find a mention of required or excluded templates on this project page. Thanks. - BillCJ 16:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If any template needs to be removed from the airline pages, I would think it ought to be the HUGE {OTA} template. It could be replaced by a single link to the Open Travel Alliance article, with a phrase stating that the airline is a member. - BillCJ 18:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what value is added by the {{airlistbox}} template over the category system. I agree that the {{OTA}} template is rather large for what it offers. I have no objection to seeomg it vanish or if it came up in compressed form. Vegaswikian 06:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frequent Flyer Programs (revisited)

There wasn't much of a response when I last brought this up, so I'll mention it again. The guideline that "large or well-known" FFPs should have their own articles is vague. People have interpreted this to mean just about every frequent flyer program there is. I think that line should be changed to say that the program is particularly unique or notable, such as AAdvantage (the first), Miles & More (an 8-airline program), etc. DB (talk) 03:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines like large and big are entirely subjective and will frequently cause problems since what one editor thinks it means is not what another sees. On the other hand fixed numbers don't work since they are usually used to exclude something since it does not meet an arbitrary number. I know this does not help, so maybe we need to ignore the large and only go with unique, historic or something like that. Vegaswikian 06:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Erm I think questions on notability are universal throughout wikipedia, and it goes without saying that just about every case for notability is subjective, including size. Hence, I fail to understand why size should be ignored in favour of other supposedly less subjective factors.--Huaiwei 23:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ryanair FAR

Ryanair has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy (Talk) 02:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A table for destination page

I want to hear your oppinion about the tables created for in destination page, such as Malaysia Airlines destinations. Does it look better and more informative (with codes, fleet type)? I know as the rule said that we should list down lists only, but would the table like this be acceptable? why or why not? Someone please sheds some light on the matter. Thank you. Zack2007 17:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

In simple terms, this is an encylopedia and not travelwiki. While it is appropiate to include some information on where the airline flys, providing that much detail starts crossing the line with WP:NOT. While a taveler might want to know what aircraft files a specific route, that material is not encylopedic. Vegaswikian 06:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not 100% enthusiastic about the table, but may I just ask in what way would this information be deemed unecycylopedic to a non-travelling air transport expert?--Huaiwei 23:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A newbie has created a similar table for Singapore Airlines destinations, not too keen on the format really. It just looks plain ugly. Violates WP:NOT, I believe people can go to the website to find all these trivial information. Terence Ong 09:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not inclined to support the table format, per the reasons stated above. There is too much information. Having a list of up to which type of aircraft is flown given a specific route is too much for an encyclopedia. The article would start to look like a page in an almanac if we list all information in the table format. Elektrik Blue 82 19:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the arguments above, the info can go out of date very quickly. Some airlines are constantly changing the planes they use on each route. Furthermore, how would an airline with multiple hubs be handled? Would every plane that flies to every airport be listed? With some airlines, that would create a huge mess. DB (talk) 03:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frontier Airlines routes

Seems that Frontier Airlines has editors that wish to add new routes with details like days of service, aircraft and other information. I believe there was consensus to limit destination information to only points serviced to avoid non encylopedic material issues. So before we get into 3RR teritory or an edit war, I'd like some feedback here. The last changes before my edit also started to add routes that were being dropped. Vegaswikian 06:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Braniff Flights

There is a CfD on Category:Braniff Flights that may be of interest. I should note that we also have a Category:National Airlines Flights and possibally a few others. Vegaswikian 07:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm confused

Can someone help a poor unenlightened soul out? Why does Wikipedia:Airline destination lists exist? Also, this (referring to the contents, not the category itself). Wikipedia is not Wikitravel and I see no particular reason why it should simply repeat this information here (see WP:NOT#IINFO) when it can be easily found on the company's website. It also looks a little like advertising for the airline companies... Axem Titanium 03:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

How is the Airline destination lists page advertising? It doesn't mention any specific airlines. It's a list of all airports with commercial service. I don't know of a website that lists all airports in the world that are served by at least one airline. DB (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

All the pages in this category seem to do just that. Why does Wikipedia have to be that one website to list every single piece of airline information? After all, Wikipedia is not a travel guide. Axem Titanium 22:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The page functions as a master list for the correct name to use for these airports. Think of if more in terms of a guideline or policy. Vegaswikian 23:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Wait, what policy/guideline are you referring to? Axem Titanium 23:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not say it was a policy or guideline. I said think of the list in those terms. Normally a naming convention can be created. However since airport names are not, by their nature, something that can easily be stated in a guideline, a list was created instead. Vegaswikian 00:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't the main article for each airline speak for itself? Axem Titanium 00:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. One might one to bring it up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Livingston Airline Destinations. As it seems Livingston Airline Destinations is to be deleted, you might want to salvage some information from there. Or something. I don't know. Now you know of the AfD's existence at least... Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 19:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, seeing that AfD was what prompted me to come here and investigate. When I first saw it, I was going to say "delete" on sight, but seeing as there are so many other pages like it, I decided to come here first, before making any further decision about it. Axem Titanium 00:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User Problem with Listening to Rules

User:Huaiwei is reluctant to abiding by the terms on how to correctly layout a page and its contents. I have justified why we make these changes and I have reverted his incorrect edits various times. I am getting tired of doing this. What can I do? Is this considered vandalism?--Golich17 00:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well. Vegaswikian 06:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Livingston Airline Destinations

Livingston Airline Destinations is proposed for deletion, and the consensus at the moment seems to be delete. Please see the AfD for this article, as other destinations by airline would also be proposed for deletion. Tinlinkin 19:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Just a heads up, but ALL 172 airline destinations articles are now being nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Airlines destinations. Michael Greiner 01:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I have also asked for a deletion review. Vegaswikian 05:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Airline destinations AFD (all of them)

Every single airline destination list has been nominated for deletion. If you have an opinion, weigh in at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Airlines destinations. DB (talk) 20:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding a comment just because i'm so surprised at this. Airlines are transportation systems. I would argue that the most important part of a transporation system is where it goes. What points it connects. That connection, between points, is the very idea of transportation. And someone nominated that information for deletion. It's nearly absurd. I use those pages all the time, for interest's sake, because where an airline flies is critical finding a path between cities. Anyhow, thank god they were kept. The only valid reason for removal, in my mind, would have been an overwhelming staleness of the information, which is not the case. This information appears to get updated extremely often, and is the most maintained part of airline articles. — Fudoreaper 15:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fleet info

For airline fleet info in the infobox should I add the number of plane orders the airline will recieve for instance 100(+50) --Marcusmax 02:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Open-jaw ticket

I am doing some stub sorting and sieving through categories associated with aviation. I came across this article, Open-jaw ticket and was wondering is this real or a neologism? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• When I worked as a travel agent, this was the term that was used. It was a few years ago, but I have not seen a replacement term in anything that I have read of late. Vegaswikian 18:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, works for me. seemed a bit obscure to me (thats why i asked), but I am ok with it. thanks! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Establishment Date Categories

Recently, I've noticed that some articles have had their "Airlines established in xxxx" year categories changed from the year the company was established to the year the current name is adopted. The ones that jumped out at me (because I watch them :P) are Hawaiian Airlines, Aloha Airlines, and Island Air. Hawaiian was changed from 1929 (the year the airline was founded, under the name Inter-Island Airways) to 1941 (the year the Hawaiian Airlines name was adopted), and Aloha was changed from 1946 (the year founded as Trans Pacific Airlines) to 1956 (when the Aloha Airlines name was adopted). Both airlines publicly use their original founding year as their beginning - note the "60 Years of Aloha" celebration last year. It may also be worth noting that TPA had the nickname "The Aloha Airline" almost from the beginning. Island Air is the same, being changed from 1980 (Princeville Airways) to 1992 (Island Air). In airlines with a messy corporate history with numerous predecessor airlines merged into a single corporate entity like US Airways it might make sense to use a more recent date (though that article is under 1937, the date of establishment of predecessor All American Aviation). But when it's a clear case of a single entity's history with a simple name change, I think its more appropriate to use the original date. Would we consider SGI to be established in 1999 because that's when they changed their name from Silicon Graphics? -- Hawaiian717 06:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you asked the editor who changed it for their reason for making this change? I have to wonder if this is somehow related to activities in Singapore Airlines where a question of formation date has been raised. In that case, it is not clear that there is clear line of mergers that trace back to the earlier creation date, the airline was one of two created when another airline was split into two. In the case of HA, there is a clear line of name changes from what I can see. Vegaswikian 07:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I have, but the conversation stalled out a bit so I thought I'd bring it here and get some discussion towards a resolution. As far as I can see, the editor in question (User:Ardfern) doesn't seem to be involved with the Singapore Airlines activities. You can read our discussion so far on this on his and my talk pages. -- Hawaiian717 17:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It is my understanding that the guidelines support renaming to keep an article in sync with the current name. This is across the board and not specific for airlines or companies. While in most cases, this makes sense, I feel that there are many cases when this should not be done. In your case, since there was simply a series of renames, leaving everything in one article would seem to be in compliance with the guidelines. I also believe that if a company name was well know, keeping an article under that old name makes sense. Why, because people who want to read about that old company can get the facts in an article and not have to filter through material that does not apply to that period of time in a 'newer' companies history.

So the trick is to establish a balance so that readers can get an accurate picture. If an article starts getting too large or the history gets too complex, then moving the older material out by airline clearly makes sense to me. However, since we now have the establishment date categories, there is the question of what goes into there. This part of the discussion probably needs to be in the Categorization discussion area. If I have an article for inter island and HA, can they both have the same year established? Or even, should they? If the position is that the establishment year applies to the name, then how do we cover this in an article. It is also reasonable for the establishment date and the date founded to be different since a company can have a later start then it can trace its history to. Think of a new company that acquires a smaller but older competitor and now owns that history. This happens often in newspapers who what to make themselves have a longer lifespan. Vegaswikian 22:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

i think we should go with the oldest date that the airline traces its lineage back to. As I said in the US Airways talk page, "Picking a 1979 date is as arbitrary as picking a 1996 date; 1980's USAir looked very similar to 1978's Allegheny Airlines. Changing the name didn't drastically and instantly change the airline. If anything the PSA, Piedmont, and America West mergers were more significant than any of the name changes." So I agree that the Hawaiian airlines should go with the older dates. I'll have to go read up on your discussions with the other editor as well. —Cliffb 22:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree as long as we are talking about mergers and acquisitions. If you have a company ends its existence by creating multiple companies, then it can be more complicated. Should any of those new companies be able to claim ownership to the earliest formation date? Vegaswikian 22:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Branniff II/III, and the PanAms shouldn't be able to claim the earlier airline's start date. —Cliffb 06:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say if a company splits itself up, then the new entities should be considered established at the breakup date. But if one of the "new" companies is a renaming of whatever is left of the original company, then it should keep the original date. We can look at Cendant as an example. Realogy and Wyndham Worldwide were spun off in 2006 so they get that date. After that, Cendant renamed itself Avis Budget Group, so ABG gets the earlier Cendant date. Now obviously, the divisions of Wyndham and Realogy are older than their parent companies, so articles on subsidiaries should get the division's original formation date, for example 1970 for Days Inn. Corporate history gets confusing, but I'm glad Wikipedia has a lot of background on it, because I find it interesting and company websites are often pretty short on historical info. -- Hawaiian717 23:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Would it make sense to continue this discussion as a subpage with the intent to include the result within the project as a guide to what airlines that have merged should have articles? I suspect that this is a bigger issue that affects more then airlines, so if we develop something it could be adapted by other business related projects. Does anyone know of a place where establishment dates are covered? Vegaswikian 01:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure.. I think we've come to an agreement and we can reference our discussion for other projects. But I'd guess they'll come up with similar positions as well. —Cliffb 06:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crash naming proposal

I've put up a proposal on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (aircraft)#Airline accident naming conventions to codify the long-standing practice of naming articles on crashes as <<airline>><<flight number>>. Comments from the group to help establish consensus would be appreciated. Akradecki 19:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OTA tfd

I just nominated the Open Travel Alliance template for deletion. Comment here if interested. DB (talk) 04:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images in articles

Does the project have a view on photographs in airline articles? I can see the value of different aircraft types being illustrated. But sometimes we have more than one of each aircraft, do the extras need to be moved to commons and referenced out?? or should we have a gallery instead of random pictures inserted in the article. MilborneOne 21:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've always felt that images in Wikipedia should be there to further the text message, not just for looks. Images that show a history of livery, or a particularly significant aircraft type, are what I look for. Pretty pictures that are there simply to fill space are, to me, a waste. I know there are photographers whose toes this view will step on, but if the image doesn't serve a legitimate encyclopedic function, I believe it should be removed. Akradecki 21:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, we can always justify one image as illustrating the airline, much like we do with the company logos, on the basis that showing the airline's livery is illustrating the airline. Under this reasoning, these photographs should be current, in other words no red/orange/blue on white for United. I don't think its necessary to illustrate every type flown by an airline, though showing major variations of the livery flown by the airline through the years can be relevant; images should be placed adjacent to text describing that era in the company's history when possible. -- Hawaiian717 23:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

• Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-07 Singapore Airlines#Request for Comment: Reasons For/Against Request for comment on topic with wider impact on the Airline Project.04:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible new wikiproject - Wikiproject Aviation

Hello! Several editors at WP:AIRCRAFT, a project related to this one, have proposed that a new wikiproject be created. This new proposed project would be wikiproject aviation, and while the details regarding this are Here, the basic proposal would make WP:AIRCRAFT, WP:AIRLINES and WP:AIRPORTS listed as projects under the new WP:AVIATION. Input from mebers of this project would be much appreciated at the main thread located at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#Major_proposal:_WP_Aviation. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Navboxes formatting

bsd. i came across quite a few air navboxes, that don't use the template "navigation" (example: SkyWest end of page). while it wouldn't be a problem for boxes appearing mid-article, and probably would be even better this way, it's not the same for those that appear on the end of page. they are not of modular standard, create huge white spaces around them, thus not visually pleasing, among other problems. in short: i thought of moving them to template "navigation" format, any thoughts? side issue: many of these use different colors for the header bar, the template has a standard one, which one should be used? Ben Stone 19:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A Single Project Banner for use by all aviation related projects

I've created a project banner at User:Trevor MacInnis/sandbox/Aviation banner. This banner can replace all the various banners used by the various projects, while still providing all the individual uses, such as categorizing articles under specific projects. It is based on the banner user by the Military history project ({{WPMILHIST}}). An example of it in use is at User talk:Trevor MacInnis/sandbox/Aviation banner, and you can see that by using the various parameters, all aviation articles will be combined under the aviation project at Category:WikiProject Aviation articles and when tagged properly, in their respective Category:Rotorcraft task force articles, etc. It will also allows us to introduce other areas of the Wikiproject, such as "collaboration of the month", and take advantage of the larger total number of users throughout the projects. Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation#A_Single_Project_Banner_for_use_by_all_aviation_related_projects. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 21:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Retired Fleets?

While there has been a lot of discussion regarding fleet information latyout there has been little (as far as I can see) mention of retired fleets, i.e. should the information be included? I am all for including this information as I believe it is a) an important part of an airlines history (no fleet, no airline!) and b) it is interesting to see the way in which the airline's fleet has developed. If a decision relating to this has already been made, please forgive me, but could someone please enlighten me? RaseaC 22:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cebu Pacific

A certain User:Lukla keeps on inserting images in the Cebu Pacific article! And I think that these images does not have proper copyright! For he said that he is the creator of this work, but from the aircraft images below the image their it states JetPhotos.Net! Below are the images he uploaded.

• Image:Gfh.gif
• Image:Tropical Plane Fun.jpg
• Image:City of Manila.jpg
• Image:Vfdf.jpg
• Image:City of Cebu.jpg
• Image:Philippine Centennial.jpg
• Image:Adult Eagle.jpg
• Image:Young Eagle.jpg
• Image:Cebu Paci.jpg

For now I'll revert all his edits. -chris^_^ 05:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I see the images have different photographers listed in the copyright bar. I've seen this before (every now and then I'll do a search for airliners.net, jetphotos, myaviation, and so forth in the Image: and Image_talk: namespaces) and the same person uploading photos with different names in the copyright bar, and claiming ownership, is to me a clear sign that they're all just taken without permission. I'm tagging them all for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#G12. -- Hawaiian717 05:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Airports by continent

Does anyone see a need for the Category:Airports by continent series of categories? If not, they need to be nominated at CfD. Vegaswikian 05:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I can see categories for airports by state/territory or country as being useful, but not so much for continents. On the other hand, having the additional level of continent probably doesn't hurt to much, since there is virtually no maintenance (countries don't change what continent they're in). On the other hand, a country can be in two continents (e.g. Russia), while a particular airport within Russia would only be in one. -- Hawaiian717 15:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If we do away with the categories, the destination lists for the commercial airports would still be listed by continent. Vegaswikian 20:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about the destination lists in the airline articles? I was thinking more along the lines that it could be useful to have categories like Category:Airports in Hawaii, much like other categories that divide things up geographically, such as Category:Companies based in Hawaii. Though perhaps the lists, such as List of airports in Hawaii can serve the same purpose, though I tend to bias towards Categories over Lists as easier to maintain, although lists do have the advantage of being able to include things that don't have articles. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about whether these categories are kept, or how deep they're kept. -- Hawaiian717 20:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm just suggesting that the Category:Airports by continent and the immediate children like Category:Airports in Africa be eliminated. All other categories, including the grand children would remain. There are about 5 articles that do not easily fit into the by country scheme and would have to be manually moved. But that is a minor issue. I'm not suggesting the elimination of categories like Category:Airports in Hawaii. Vegaswikian 21:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I don't have any objection to what you're proposing. I just wasn't sure how deep you were wanting to go. -- Hawaiian717 21:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass change of airline fleet size and orders statistics

While conducting RC patrol a few days ago, I noticed a user making a number of changes to the fleet statistics of multiple airlines. User:71.112.102.126 made a total 129 changes on March 14 and 15. I don't know whether the changes are accurate (that's why I didn't revert them), but thought I should let editors at this project know (see the user's contribution history for a list of all the changes). I also noticed that there was a similar issue (raised above on this talk page) with another IP user in November 2006. -- Black Falcon 20:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article stability

I think we need to discuss some of the content of articles and how they reflect the stability of articles. As an encyclopedia, the content should be fairly constant and not need to be updated for changes to material that might not be encyclopedic.

For example, as a general rule, specific routes are not encyclopedic. There is no need to list the beginning and ending of these. For the airlines that have these listed, this seems to generate a lot of churn to the articles. I am not talking about including the destinations, which do update but less often, but rather a route from 'point a' to 'point b', sometimes with comments like the frequency of service. This information is not encyclopedic.

Likewise for the fleet age. This is a number that changes daily! While of some interest, it is not encyclopedic so it should not be included on every airline's fleet table. This might be notable in the history section with a citation for when the airline had the newest or the oldest fleet.

Then we have articles that include detailed code share information. This changes more often as agreements change and providing detail does not appear to be encyclopedic. For some small or less know airlines, this information could be significant so some exceptions should be allowed in these limited cases. In other cases, this seems to be included for marketing reasons rather then encyclopedic value. National pride is important, but it does not make including everything about a topic a good thing for the encyclopedia as a hole.

Comments?

Vegaswikian 20:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

On routes: I generally agree. A rule of thumb might be, "20 years from now, will anyone care?" New service between currently served destinations (such as US Airways operated by America West between Portland, OR and Charlotte, NC) is not interesting, but the expansion into a significantly different market (such as Virgin Blue transpacific service to the US) is. I agree it's sufficient in most cases just to update the destination list.

To give a more concrete example, from AirTran Airways. This should go:

On January 10, 2007, AirTran started service to Daytona Beach (DAB) and to Newburgh (SWF) utilizing their Boeing 717
aircraft. Ground handling is provided by Air Wisconsin, which also handles United Express/Mesa Airlines.

while this should stay:

In June 2003, AirTran began new services operated by Ryan International Airlines to Denver, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles using 
Ryan International Airbus A320s painted in Air Tran livery, making it a coast-to-coast airline.

On fleet page: While potentially interesting, it is hard to track. Trying to say oldest or newest can be hard too, as airlines take deliveries of new aircraft and retire older ones. Do we even have any good reliable sources for this, or are we computing it based on sources like airlinerlist.com? If the latter, might this wander into original research territory?

On code shares: I started writing that code sharing information is useful and ought to be kept (at least as a list of partners), but now I'm not so sure. I really ran into trouble trying to think of how to justify keeping a list of codesharing partners while dumping frequent flyer only partnerships, and realized I don't think its all that useful after all. If stability is the primary concern, then keeping a list of code share partnerships isn't too bad, but trying to keep track of what routes/markets the agreement covers is likely more effort than it is worth; it's the same as the situation with routes. -- Hawaiian717 21:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the month

There's a new Collaboration of the month, Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, that may be of interest to editors here; any help there would be appreciated. Thanks! Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 19:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)