I've been thinking about the current Wikivoyage classification of airports as unworthy of articles unless they are 'huge', which, to me, seems to be somewhat limiting. I can understand that we do not want hundreds of tiny articles about small, municipal airports, but outside of North America, there seem to be comparatively few of these in existence. At present, large airports (but ones that could not really be classified as a settlement on their own) are referenced by many different articles, but each presents different information. For example, in the United Kingdom, the article on Leeds provides extensive car parking information about Leeds Bradford Airport, but as one can tell from the name, it does not serve Leeds exclusively, so the Leeds page would not necessarily be the traveller's first port of call when searching for information. The same applies for Manchester Airport, the catchment area of which is much of the North of England and I'm sure this applies to other areas around the world. What I would suggest is the creation of an 'Airport Template' which would allow the information dispersed on multiple articles to be collated and used more easily. The articles for the areas that these airports served would then link back to them. I am certainly not advocating an article for every airport and airfield in the world, but as airports are such integral parts of people's travel experience, it seems unfortunate that the information we have is spread so thinly across a number of articles. Perhaps the exception for airports could be reworked as 'permitted for large airports that serve more than one city'? Any thoughts are very welcome. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 17:54, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Totally support this idea. In fact I was thinking of writing a couple of articles on airports I know well. And as you say there are a number of airport I fly to where I am not going to the city it is named after, should at least be put under a region.--Traveler100 (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

As Wikivoyage increases in size I think the arguments against certain article types need to be revisited, and aiports might be a good example. One key point in any change, however, should be where to draw the line between an article-worthy airport and a non-article-worthy airport, and I'm not sure that "airports that serve more than one city" would suffice as it could be argued that just about any airport serves all surrounding towns and villages that don't have their own airport. What about using a criteria such as airports that serve connecting flights and have multiple shops and restaurants available? That would eliminate tiny municipal airports and focus on airports that have enough information to at least fill out a "buy" and "eat" section. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Many of the major airport I think should already be allowed, as they often have integrated or nearby hotels. Passes the Can You Sleep There? question.--Traveler100 (talk) 19:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

That does sound like a better definition! --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 19:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Pardon me, most airports have a nearby hotel. Would you write an article about Murmansk airport? Number of passengers per year could be a good criterion, but let's try to look at this problem from another direction. Frankfurt airport is huge, but what can we write about it? Plan of the airport, connections between the terminals? Well, it is on their website, and it is not very useful because most people simply follow signs to their departure gate. Places to eat? Well, they are all same bland and expensive, I see no particular reason to choose any particular place. One major problem is that travelers are not free to choose what they do at the airport. They have to go to a specific terminal and, moreover, to either domestic or international area. Then a travel guide to the airport should cover every corner, which is difficult and does not make much sense. In my opinion, the only sensible topic would be: how to spend night in the airport? Do we need a separate article for this? Well, only in exceptional cases. --Alexander (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

The points you make are fair, but I'm not sure we can simply dismiss an idea simply because a website with this information already, exists, after all, there are hundreds of travel guides in existence. I would advocate the use of a different, shorter template for airports, that would hopefully make the Wikivoyage experience more thorough. It is true that much of a visit to an airport is pre-structured, but I think this is just as much about making Wikivoyage a more complete experience for the user. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 20:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Agreed with Nicholasjf21, whose remarks immediately above this text cut right to the heart of the issue, IMO. I propose we proceed based on the criteria Ryan enumerated above. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

To Ryan's criteria: take a look at the Tallinn airport. It serves connecting flights, and it has about 5 places to eat as well as 3 or 4 duty-free shops. I described this in one line, because I can't distinguish between one place with overpriced coffee and another place with the same overpriced coffee. Yes, we can write about every of the eating places, and we can list items sold in duty-free shops (Hennessy, Bacardi, Smirnoff... what else? apparently, Vana Tallinn), but I see this information as having very low importance for a travel guide. Once you are at the airport, you will easy find it yourself in 1-2 minutes, because the whole terminal building is less than 100 m long.

The criteria should be way more strict. For example, I don't think that any of the two Berlin airports is worth writing about. --Alexander (talk) 21:56, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I suggest the following: someone takes liberty and responsibility to write an article about a (reasonably) big airport and bring it to the guide status. Then we better understand how it looks like and which guidelines should be used. In general, articles about individual "buildings" (be it airports, museums, or theaters) are a very slippery slope. Our strategy is to have all information in one article or in several district articles. Now we make one more article for the CDG airport, then one for Louvre, then probably one for Orsay... and we end up being Wikipedia. --Alexander (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Firstly, we do cover and gather information on airports. As a case in point, Sydney has nearly 3500 words written about it, within the Sydney and related articles. The information covered there includes the sleeping overnight info, the terminal transfer, postal and communication services, and getting to and from, and nearby accommodation and food.

I think Frankfurt is a good example of why words aren't proportional to airport size. If you have an airport where there is much the same food available everywhere, in-terminal integrated rail, shuttle to all terminals, atms and English speaking helpstaff wandering around, free Wi-Fi with English instructions on the splashpage - what is left to write? Sydney, on the other hand..

To me it seems like airports should always be included in the city guides to begin with. The last thing we want is a sudden proliferation of stub airport articles. At some stage we hit a point where they overpower the main article, so we then decide if there is unneeded information, or whether we need a separate guide. --Inas (talk) 21:58, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I suppose I know what you mean and agree with your points, but perhaps not necessarily with your conclusion! I agree that it is nice to keep areas together; I don't doubt that airport information is collated on here -I've seen it done so extensively, but I'm not sure this is necessarily the right choice here. Of course, a proliferation of stub articles is absolutely undesirable, but if done properly and in the right places, I think airport articles could be very effective. Perhaps this would be something to discuss on city talk pages and decide on a case-by-case basis. I am not necessarily in favour of articles for every airport, even if they are large - some will naturally fit into city articles very well, but in many case airports serve a region and each page that mentions them provides different information. I would hope that this would provide a simpler and more comprehensive result for users. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think gaining consensus on the city guide works (with the status-quo bias against). I really think Can you sleep there? will give us the wrong answer in many cases. --Inas (talk) 22:34, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think that one use of a guide to an airport is to suggest things to do near the airport if there is several hours between connecting flights. This is most likely to happen at airports with international connections. International travellers may not know which small town is near the airport eg Slough for Heathrow Airport, and this could be a better way of spending a half day than trying to get into the city that the airport is named after. AlasdairW (talk) 22:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I really like that idea - sights in the vicinity would be an excellent category to have on airport pages. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Airports that serve regions can already be placed in region articles. See Bali for a star example. Globe-trotter (talk) 23:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

That is good, but the point I'm making is that the information we give for airports is spread widely but thinly over a number of articles. Would it not be better to have a single page which contains this information and could be easily linked to from surrounding articles, which I think would give the user a better overall experience. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think we have to allow flexibility to deal with individual cases. There is ongoing discussion on Talk:New York City about how to shorten the article, and one obvious step is to remove most of the long, boring - but for some travelers, necessary - sections about airports and transportation to and from them and the various boroughs. We are considering farming most of the Newark Airport info out to the Newark guide and the LaGuardia and JFK info to the Queens guide, but a "New York City Area Airports" guide might be a better idea, and it wouldn't be a short article.

As a preliminary thought, I would propose the criterion that if airport information and information about transportation to/from one or two area airports has become too long and boring in a destination guide, it would be an excellent idea to farm it out either to the locality where the airport is or to its own dedicated article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:47, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of maybe writing a little section about what there is to do nearby during long layovers, but such content should be prose with links to relevant districts/cities/towns...not the primary location for listings (unless they are actually inside the airport). One thing that I find very useful in Wikipedia articles about airports are the lists of airlines/destinations, which seem to be kept up-to-date. It would be great if we could have a cross-wiki bot that can keep these lists in sync! For good examples of this see: w:Dubai International Airport#Terminals, airlines and destinations or w:Miami International Airport#Airlines and destinations. AHeneen (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

That sounds like the sort of thing that Wikidata might help with, once phase 3 is up and running. For airport articles here, I like Ikan's criterion above - that an airport article could be started using information from destination guides if there's a consensus that it's too detailed to fit well in those guides anymore. I'm not so convinced that dispersal or duplication of airport information across guides is as good a reason. Moving the information up to a regional guide seems like it might be sufficient in that case. --Avenue (talk) 10:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Some of the comments above have challenged me to creating a page on Frankfurt Airport (watch this space). There are many things that are specific to the airport that are different to the city or region. Get in section can definitely benefit from detailed information, hotels should list those with shuttle buses to/from airport which may be in other towns. Airports can benefit from an Eat section, some airports everything is passenger side of customs while other are public side or both, good to know before you walk through. Frankfurt in particular would benefit from knowledgeable tips are when to eat and drink. The argument that you can get the information from the website amazes me, as I see the opposite argument going on with regards to listing link style and external/interwiki links, or is this just resistance to change and expansion of the site? No discussion here about printed version as WiFi in many airport cost.--Traveler100 (talk) 11:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I apologize for possible misunderstanding. I wrote that a good map of the airport is always available on the airport website, and we don't have to duplicate it. I did not mean that the airport website can replace a full travel guide. Please, plunge forward. I am curious to see your writing on the Frankfurt airport, because I am using it every 2 months and sometimes even more often. Despite this very extensive usage and a good knowledge of every corner in Terminal 1, I am really not sure that I can provide any useful tips relevant to this airport. Free coffee in Terminal A and moderately expensive Frankfurter sausages between gates 26 and 28... that's really all essential information about the departure area. --Alexander (talk) 12:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Started Frankfurt Airport as a point of discuss on content and layout. I extracted information from the Frankfurt page plus added some additional knowledge of my own. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Jumping in. We do have three guide-status airport articles: O'Hare International Airport (which just barely failed a star nomination), Heathrow Airport, and Kansai International Airport. I don't support creating airport pages unless the relevant article#by_plane section is already well-developed and long. The in-guide information should be a priority. --Peter ^Talk 22:10, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

And by the way, if someone wants to work on an airport article, a Charles de Gaulle Airport article would be worth writing—that's one big, confusing place! --Peter ^Talk 22:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I have to say, that the attempt at Frankfurt Airport so far is a strong argument against. It is big on overlap, and adds nothing that couldn't be summarised in a few extra lines in the Frankfurt article. Perhaps we're still missing something, but I'm not sure what. I'm with Peter, lets add the info to the article, then when we know it is too big and complex, chop it out. --Inas (talk) 22:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I, for one, was astonished to find that John F. Kennedy International Airport redirects to a subsection of New York City. Having arrived and departed from JFK frequently, it seems like an obvious airport article to get cracking on. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

JFK does look like an obvious candidate for a separate article, certainly. In terms of overlap with the Frankfurt article, would we not remove most of the stuff that is in the main article and has been copied across? In each city article I think it would be better just to have a few sentences describing interaction with the airport from the city end and a link to the article.--Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Look at the Heathrow info in the London article. There is still a fair bit of content there. --Inas (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Do we think we're coming close to any sort of consensus on this issue? Do we need a new way of defining what sort of airport deserves an article? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 22:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think we seem to agree that airports with little content don't get articles. We seem to agree that when airports have significant legitimate content that outgrow their articles that contain them, they get separate articles.

The Frankfurt airport experiment in assuming a large airport needs a separate article, demonstrates to me that this is the wrong approach. Any additional content could easily have been added to Frankfurt without overwhelming that article, and we don't need to repeat what is in common in every major airport on the planet. We could add the info there, without too much drama, and there just isn't any point in duplication.

The interesting remaining cases are airports that are removed from the cities they service to the extent they are are almost satellite cities, or where an airport primarily services a neighbouring city, or when several airports service a single city. --Inas (talk) 03:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I have a few thoughts on separate articles for airports. At certain airports like Frankfurt, and I believe also Dubai, Chicago and Los Angeles for example, a large part of the passengers aren't actually going to or leaving from the city where the airport is located but just changing flights. For obvious reasons these are usually comparatively large airports handling a lot of flights and transfers. If the airport is your final destination, you would probably need just information about where to find the taxi or bus to the city which can be compressed into a few sentences in the city/town/region article. But if you are just transferring you would be interested in getting from one terminal to another, possible unexpected "surprises" peculiar to the airport, probably restaurants and entertainment inside the airport plus hotels in and near the airport. This will add up to a lot of information to fill a city article with, and for passengers who is only switching from one flight to another it would be practical find information just about the airport. I'm not talking about making separate articles for each and every international airport in the world, but let's say 15-20 large transfer airports. And we should look at those as travel topics rather than destinations. Ypsilon (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

A rough consensus has emerged: After significant discussion and several drafts an agreement was reached on a template for use in creating airport articles. Follow-up actions: Wikivoyage:Airport article template has been created. Added by: Ryan • (talk) • 20:26, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Continued from above under a separate heading. See Talk:Airport Expedition\templatesandbox for the work-in-progress template proposal.

While several years ago I probably would have been opposed to expanding the scope of the site to include airports, given the growth of this site I think it's probably time to start encouraging articles about large/busy airports. Two comments though:

1. I don't like the Frankfurt airport article, but I think it's because the proposed template isn't airport-specific. The huge number of sites devoted to frequent flyers show that there is a massive demand for information about airport lounges, nuances of security/passport control, airline types, etc. I think if we're going to do USEFUL airport articles that we need section headings that encourage contribution of that type of airport-specific info.
2. I think the "split the info out when it's large enough" is a chicken-and-egg problem in this case - putting airport information in city articles encourages focusing on the bare minimum about that airport in order not to overwhelm the article, and airport articles have tended to only be created when someone plunges forward and starts one from scratch, rather than when the content begins to overwhelm the city article and warrants a separate article.

I don't think we should begin creating tons of airport articles using the Frankfurt airport article as a guideline, but I do think that if someone can propose a suitable airport template that this is an idea that could add significant value to the site. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of a different template for airports - I agree that people do find the little details about airports very useful for when they travel. Any ideas for categories in such a template? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 13:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm still keen to see this demonstrated to work in practice. How about we continue to hack the Frankfurt airport article as an example. If we can get this article containing useful content out of the scope of the main article, then we have somewhere to go. --Inas (talk) 00:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good to me! Are there any categories that you think would help it work? --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

The one that keeps coming up is Lounges. A general section on how to pass spare time in transit sounds good (i.e. are there city tours, can you get the train direct to an nice restaurant for lunch, etc), is there a viewing platform. A distinct See/Do isn't really necessary. The Get in section needs to explicitly divide the airside part and the landside part because mixing those in one section is confusing. The thing I like to know about an airport is time to gate if you've no bags and have checked in online. I realise this can differ for different terminals. I've also created this expedition and swept the discussion here. If we're going to give this a go, then lets be organised in our approach. --Inas (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think a separate heading that lists airlines is appropriate for an airport article. This section would also allow us to remove the long airline lists from some of our city articles and would be a logical place for listing lounges since they are usually connected to an airline. Including feedback from Inas, and working in standard section headings, here's a rough proposal for an airport template:

• Understand
• Airlines (airlines and their corresponding destinations, info about airline lounges)
• Get in (how to get to/from the airport)
• Get around (airport transportation, terminals, security, time to gate)
• See and Do (viewing platforms, other activities)
• Buy (shopping areas in the airport, duty-free tips, etc)
• Eat (restaurants in the airport)
• Drink (bars/coffee shops in the airport)
• Sleep (lodging connected to the airport - do not duplicate listings found in other articles, instead include pointers to towns with lodging suitable for a long layover)
• Connect (internet / post in the airport)
• Cope (shower, luggage storage, chapel, etc)
• Go next (what is feasible for someone with a long layover)

It might be nice to consolidate that somewhat - "See and Do" and "Cope" might be candidates for a new combined heading, since a visit to the chapel or a shower are basically activities when you're stuck in the airport, but I'm not sure what an appropriate heading name would be. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Wait?

Last time I was in Frankfurt in transit, I did lunch at the Rheingold. Very convenient, but a train trip. Does it deserve a listing, or is it pure duplication? Do we just include a pointer to Mainz. Last time I was in a layover in Auckland, about 2km walk from the airport there is a Putt-Putt Golf, a really quite cool one. Does that get listing? It probably wouldn't be mentioned in the Auckland article if not. Do attractions outside the airport get a separate section to things in the airport? --Inas (talk) 04:00, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

My preference would be to never duplicate listings and to instead highlight other articles when talking about non-airport restaurants and activities, so in your example we would include a note in the "Eat" or "Go next" section about Mainz being an accessible layover option. Using an example I'm more familiar with, if you fly into LAX you can eat at the very, very cool Encounter restaurant, which is right in the middle of the airport; that listing would be moved from its current location in our El Segundo article to the (unwritten) LAX article. However, when suggesting that those with long layovers might want to play golf at the nine hole course that is a few miles from LAX, we would include that information in the "Go next" portion of the airport article similar to the following:

El Segundo This town borders LAX to the south and is easily accessible by taxi, bus or rental car. It offers many lodging options, a walkable downtown filled with restaurants, and even a nine hole golf course that is less than a ten minute taxi ride from the airport.

I think allowing duplicate listings opens up a can of worms, particularly since any hotel within 30 minutes of the airport will claim to be "a short taxi ride away", and it thus would take someone with good local knowledge to figure out what is truly an airport hotel vs what is essentially deceptive marketing. That's my opinion - if there is a middle ground that allows good info about nearby restaurants, hotels, etc to be included in the airport article without turning that article into a spammy mess then it would be worth considering, but past experience makes me (perhaps overly) cautious. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Agree that a better layout is needed than the current Frankfurt airport article which is based on city format. Get in section should be split into arrivals and departures to the airport. So departure would have details on check-in and as mentioned above times to gates through security etc. Also maybe details on long-stay car-parks and car hire return locations. Arrivals details on where car hire pick-up is (some airports it is in the building, others you need to find where the shuttle bus leaves from). Getting around should be split by airside and landside and probably for most airports by terminal. How about tips on where to find seat you can lay horizontal on (there are a few places in Frankfurt airport)? Is information on availability/location of banks, postal service, churches, pharmacy and so on useful?--Traveler100 (talk) 06:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Airport pages should be organised by airside and landside as once committed to going through controls it is not always easy to get back. Airports like Frankfurt and LAX have more choice landside while Detroit and Atlanta airside is better. For example Eat and Drink sections should be a number of times in a page depending on what zone of the airport they are in. Also on the comment about lounges. Information on carrier lounges would be useful. For example at Frankfurt and Detroit there are lounges for frequent flyers but at LAX and Orlando only for Senator class. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Excellent point, Traveler100, and crucial to decide this early on in our template debate before we get into the detailed nitty gritty. -- Alice^✉ 08:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent idea. So we really need 'Arriving' and 'Departing' sections, as well as 'landside' and 'airside' subsections for lots of the facilities. I do like 'Wait' as a replacement for See/Do and Cope too as these probably would come under the same broad header in an airport. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 09:25, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Something to use to get the idea tuned. talk:Airport Expedition\templatesandbox. A start but should it go so deep with subsections or should it be Get around Landside Terminal 1 ,Get around Landside Terminal 2? Also what section are per zone and what section is for all airport (such as Sleep)? --Traveler100 (talk) 11:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Not a bad start. I think "Arrive" and "Depart" would match our style a little better (or possibly something like Take off/Touch down), and the headers should definitely not have landside, airside, and next capitalized. I don´t see any real reason landside should be split into terminals in many cases and in fact, I don´t really like having two top-level Get around sections - I think in many cases these can be covered together (If there are two whole section, where to put a complete airport map?) I also don´t like seeing multiple Eat, Buy subsections etc. -- I´d rather see one Eat or Buy section, itself split into terminals etc. If I get hungry at the airport and pick up my guide, I wouldn´t expect to have to look for a subsection of "Get around". Same for See and Do-- I don´t see how these are logically subsections of Get around - and in what sense could "waiting" possibly be considered a form of "getting around"?

I´d actually much rather see something a little closer to Ryan´s proposal above, with Airlines getting its own section. I might suggest something like:

• Understand
• Airlines
• Arrive / Touch down

Baggage

Car rental

Other transportation

• Depart / Take off

Parking

Check-in

Security

• Get around
• See and Do
• Buy
• Eat and drink
• Sleep
• Connect
• Cope
• Go next

Texugo (talk) 12:01, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I can see your point on merging the Eat for landside as you can at most airport move around between terminals, although not all of them easily or quickly. Once airside though I think there should be a distinction. You really do not want to Keep going through controls just to eat. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree on the distinction being important, but I think that distinction should occur as subsections within a top-level Eat section, not by creating multiple Eat subsections under Get around, since eating is not a logical part of getting around, and since it is closer to the look and feel of our other articles.Texugo (talk) 12:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

OK that sound logical, one Eat and Drink section but then split by airside and landside. Also I think the suggest of Touch down and Take off is clearer and less chance of being misunderstood than Arrive and Depart. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, looking at how airports arrange their listings and just generally how people still tend to stick to the same terminal whether landside or airside, I think arranging by terminal and then airside/landside would be better. I changed the template but left it as third-level headings, fourth-level headings seem too defined. - Torty3 (talk) 12:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Nice, and yeah, I don´t think we want fourth-level headings in the template. I think for the model template, though, it would be sufficient to divide those sections into landside (all together) and the individual airside terminals. Landside within a given article can be split into terminals later if it starts getting too long. If someone is in the airport long enough to look for a (landside) movie theater or other activity, I don´t really think the terminal has to be the first criterion. And if it is, for a given traveller, they should be able to quickly see which things are closeby by looking at the terminal number, which will presumably be listed just after each title in the spot usually reserved for addresses. Also, just because it is in the next terminal doesn´t necessarily mean it is far away. In truth, I don´t think airside should necessarily be divided into terminal subsections either unless they have separate security, especially in articles where all those subsections will end up having only a couple of listings each. Travellers can tell where something is by glancing at the address field, just like they do for a city article which is geographically much bigger. It's a case of subdivide-only-when-it-becomes-necessary, and I think the base starting point ought to be just airside/landside for each of those sections.Texugo (talk) 13:17, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I would agree with Texugo that sub-dividing into "Landside" and "Airside" (where appropriate) should be sufficient for the template. For the actual articles, "Landside" and "Airside" should usually be enough, with subdivision by terminal (or some other division) only needed later if the article gets long. Consider: since we shouldn't have airport articles with listings for every single Starbucks and McDonalds in the airport (see not a yellow pages), even for a huge airport like LAX that has eight terminals there may only be 20-30 restaurants worth mentioning in their own listing, so subdivision into 8 sub-sections would be counter-productive. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sure, that would be best. Would it be possible though, to emphasise that listings should be ordered by terminal rather than alphabetically, especially for those 20-30 restaurants. Might just be details at this point. - Torty3 (talk) 15:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I´d rather leave them as alphabetical; otherwise it just amounts to subdividing them without saying that's what we are doing. I think people are at least as likely to choose a restaurant on the basis of cuisine type or price as they are by terminal number.Texugo (talk) 15:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Wait, why not list them by price range? Most major international airports have one or two high quality, high-end restaurants, and I usually hunt those down if I have over an hour (since air travel is misery). They'd be easiest to find with a price sort. There was an article (Forbes, I think), that had a fabulous list of these worldwide, but has vanished from the internet. I had been meaning to make something like it for a travel topic... --Peter ^Talk 20:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, that could work too, when all the listings added are given a price range (which is often not the case). But I wouldn´t put Budget/Mid-range/Splurge in the template. They can always be busted out later if there are enough listings to warrant it.Texugo (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Agree (again) with Texugo - I don't think we want to prescribe third-level headings in the template as the organization will likely be airport-specific. If there are two terminals and sub-division is necessary then organization by terminal will likely be best. If there are eight terminals then organization by price might make sense. If there are a handful of food courts and a handful of standalone restaurants then organization by... you get the idea. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:59, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perth airport terminals are 9km apart with a transfer bus that runs every 50 minutes. Alpha organisation just doesn't make sense there. Melbourne terminals are all part of the same building, so it does make sense there, you'd easily walk between terminals for something decent. Lets just make suggestions for the division, so when we do decide to divide by price or terminal our headings are standard. I'd really like our headings to be unambiguous, so I'd like to have one section that is unambiguously for ground transportation. Get in doesn't work, and it isn't clear to me which of Arrive or Depart would contain that info. --Inas (talk) 22:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sure, suggesting standard subheaders would be fine with me, as long as we keep them out of the new article substitution template. Does anyone besides me and Traveler100 like Take off and Touch down instead of Arrival and Departure? I think they sound very Wikivoyage. Texugo (talk) 22:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps it would be worth putting 'See & do' inside Depart/Arrive as well? Some airports that I've to have very different attractions depending on whether you're arriving or departing. I do like 'take off' as a title, but I'm not so keen on 'touch down' if I'm honest. I don't know whether it's just not a term that people use in Britain, or whether I'm just rather ignorant, but it always strikes me first as a term associated with American Football, rather than a plane landing. Perhaps Outbound/Inbound or Take off/Arrival? I'd be interested to hear what other people think about this issue. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Again with See and do, I don't see any reason to take our standard top level headers and put them inside other sections, and the attractions and activities are not logically part of arriving or departing. Like Eat, etc., we can keep the top level See/Do sections and subdivide within them for landside/airside. It would be non-intuitive for the traveller to have to look in the "arrival" section if they are looking for something to do.

American football uses "touchdown" pronounced as one word, with emphasis on the first syllable. "Touch down" does not sound the same, as they are emphasized as two separate words. A plane takes off, a plane touches down. Do you guys not say this? Is there another analogous term? Texugo (talk) 23:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

A section that would be useful is something like Transit, to give information for connecting passengers. If I am transferring between two international flights, do I pass through immigration etc. In some airports one can change planes without formally entering the country. I could imagine looking at several airport articles when planning a long flight like UK to Australia, and if I need a visa, or to wait in long queues at immigration to change planes then that airport would be crossed off the list. The full visa information of course belongs in the country article, but transit is a special case. AlasdairW (talk) 23:40, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Transit sounds like a good section to add!

I think it would be more natural here to say 'land' instead of touch down, but I understand that that doesn't have the same ring to it! I'm not saying that that the phrase is completely foreign to me, but that, to me (and I may well be being stupid here!) it doesn't sound completely natural, but I'm sure it would still be well understood. My only other slight qualm is that these terms don't really reflect what the traveller is doing, until the point when they actually leave (or arrive) at the airport. I.e. if I were to look through the duty-free shops before getting on to the plane, I would not be taking off, but departing. At present, I can't really think of an alternative, only the somewhat uninspiring Inbound/Outbound so we might as well leave it as touch down for the moment. --Nicholasjf21 (talk) 23:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

How about "After landing" instead of "Touch down"? --Avenue (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I was shooting for a short and snappy verb like pretty much all our other standard headings.Texugo (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think we want to be cautious about having too many headers, particularly if some of them may not have much info for some airports, so my opinion is that "Transit" can probably be handled in most cases within the "Get around" section, and in extreme cases a sub-header of that section might be warranted. As to the other proposals, I like "Arrive" and "Depart" (or "Arrival" / "Departure") better than land / touch down, but don't feel particularly strongly on the subject. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I also prefer "Arrival" / "Departure" to "land" / "touch down". I don't think many of our readers will be too bothered about sticking to our usual "house style" for section titles - better to have them as clear as possible. As far as editors are concerned, it may actually be advantageous to have different section titles from our "normal" destination articles so that it makes editors actually go and read (what will presumably be) a slightly different set of style and formatting guidelines for Airport articles. -- Alice^✉ 01:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

The new format looks good, trying out on the Frankfurt Airport article. Have just added a little information on parking as text but wondering if this would be better as a number of listings, particularly if start adding long-stay possibilities. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:04, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I really don't like Arrival and Departure. There is a real problem with putting the ground transportation in Arrival when it equally belongs in Departures. We're running into the Get in Get out problem again. Lets be straight up and down here, and have Airlines, Arrival and Departure, Ground Transportation. The Arrival and Departure covers the airport/airline part. Ground Transportation clearly means the stuff getting to and from the airport. --Inas (talk) 23:42, 26 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Do we feel that we are any closer to having a workable Airport template? At present, I'm not sure I can see a clear consensus. --Nick (talk) 20:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

No..

Look at the article and the duplication in the headings, I'd go for..

Understand

Flights

Ground Transportation => Car rental, trains, road connections.

Get around => Transit, Transfers, Entrance to Gate, Gate to Baggage Claim.

Wait => Lounges, playgrounds, observation platforms

Eat and drink

Buy => souvenirs, atms

Connect

Sleep

Nearby => Pointers to facilities accessible, but not in, the airport. Nearby towns, activities.

In particular, Go Next, and Arrival/Departure seem to be real problems. --Inas (talk) 04:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I like Inas' suggestion, particularly "Wait". I'd rename "Ground transportation" to "Get in" and "Nearby" to "Go next" just to keep in sync with other templates, even though they aren't perfect headings (also true for other articles...). "Cope" probably also makes sense as a standard heading since chapels, luggage storage and similar services are important for air travel and present in any airport that would be deserving of its own article, but overall if we have to pick a template and run with it then I'm supportive of this proposal. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Get in can mean by plane or by ground, and I really think the planes are best kept separate from the trains and buses. If you check the original article, this bit was a mess.

Go next look at the article now, where it says - anywhere in the world. We don't want that. We want to capture that alternative to the airport, that is a short trip a way and an alternative to eating airport food and watching runways?

Cope, happy with that. --Inas (talk) 04:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Inas is right, and has cogently illustrated why "Go next" is an unhelpful subheading in this context and does not serve the traveler. We need to be flexible and adopt headings that are most useful for the traveler. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Fair enough, objections withdrawn if it helps move this to implementation. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:23, 6 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm also content with Inas's suggestions if they move things forward - particularly as you already know I don't think many of our readers will be too bothered about sticking to our usual "house style" for section titles - and I really do believe it's better to have them as clear as possible. I reiterate that, as far as our editors are concerned, I'm now convinced that it is actually advantageous to have different section titles from our "normal" destination articles to make editors actually go and read (what will still presumably be) a slightly different set of style and formatting guidelines for Airport articles.

Please don't forget to add Transit to the proposed template - that's truly vital for a hell of a lot of passengers that need to know about Visa, Customs and Security issues! (For example, economy class passengers from AKL on NZ002 transiting through LAX, and continuing their flight to LHR on the very same aircraft and flight NZ002, really do need to know they can't access any Frequent Traveller lounge and will need to be fingerprinted and photographed and formally enter the US only to formally leave the US a few minutes later and will have no access to any facilities either airside or landside during what may be a two hour "transit" if the flight arrives early and leaves late!) -- Alice^✉ 06:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

How about "Fly in" and "Fly out" for arrivals and departures? As Alice said - "Transit" would certainly be a very important section in cases such as the one she mentioned. "Nearby" sounds like a quite good name for points of interest near the airport. "Go next" doesn't really fit because I could imagine that travelers on a layover would stay in the same district as the airport - those who indeed have time to go further away (e.g. to the downtown) could look up the information in the Downtown article and so on. (BTW "Go next - anywhere in the world" reminded me of the traditional April Fool's Day article) Ypsilon (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've edited the Frankfurt Airport article according to the above headings, though I confess it is a bit of a hatchet job. Any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think it is an improvement. Maybe should try it out on a couple of other existing airport articles. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:22, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I still don't think it is good enough. There is duplicated and misplaced info everywhere. Lets get this one right, and then seek support that airport articles work. --Inas (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

In the interest of getting this going again I made some edits that seemed to make sense. I've added a sub-section of "Wait" for airline lounges, removed hotel listings that aren't on the airport property in accordance with the Wikivoyage:Don't tout "one listing only" rule, and consolidated the inbound/outbound information under "Ground transportation" to be consistent with how that's handled elsewhere on the site - we don't separate inbound and outbound highways, or inbound and outbound trains, and I don't think it's helpful to do so for airports. Feedback and further edits welcome so that we can move this forward and try it out with other airports. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

One comment, not on the structure but on deletion of hotel listings. If hotels are not on-site but still service the airport (and are not as expensive as the ones at the airport) are removed from the article, they should be added to another location. It was not touting, we have now just lost useful information.Traveler100 (talk) 05:36, 22 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

You mean the hotels aren't already listed in the city where they're located? Are you sure? If not, please go ahead and add them there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:37, 22 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

The towns did not have pages (not exactly tourist locations). I have created the locations and added the hotels. When I find some time I will add a couple of restaurants, to what are currently very basic articles. Have not yet done the ones in districts of Frankfurt. Not sure they deserve separate pages but placing them in the Frankfurt article without loosing the connection to airport hotels needs some thinking about.Traveler100 (talk) 07:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Frankfurt article is now looking much better - are we any closer to an airport template? This expedition seems to have come to a halt of late. I've also been working on an article for Manchester Airport, which I know rather better. It's still a work in progress though! --Nick (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Agree the Frankfurt and Manchester Airport articles are now at usable status. I think the title and subsection organisation is good enough now to define as an article template. --Traveler100 (talk) 08:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

So should airports be tagged as cities with {{outlinecity}} and {{usablecity}} or should we create a new tag type such as outlineairport and starairport. Alternatively make it a little less specific such as port or hub in case there are any sea ports or bus terminals that are notable enough to be useful to travellers. Traveler100 (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

outlineport sounds good to me! --Nick (talk) 12:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

A rough consensus has emerged: Given the general agreement on the proposed airport article template and the criteria for when creation of an airport article is appropriate, the Wikivoyage:What is an article criteria should be updated to allow creation of airport articles. During the discussion some concerns were raised about the proposed criteria for when an airport merits an article, so those criteria were updated to explicitly include only those airports serving 100+ daily flights. Follow-up actions: Wikivoyage:What is an article?#Exceptions has been updated and Wikivoyage:Airport article template has been created. Added by: Ryan • (talk) • 20:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

At this point it seems like there is agreement that:

1. Airport articles are appropriate for large airports that serve connecting flights (and thus a person might be spending several hours at the airport) and that have enough eating and shopping options to fill out a "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" section.
2. While the Frankfurt airport article could still use some work, the template for it is what we would like to use for airport articles.

Does that seem accurate? If so, let's request further feedback in the Pub and Wikivoyage:Requests for comment, and provided there aren't objections we can then update Wikivoyage:What is an article and Wikivoyage:Article templates. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Seems accurate to me, pending any demurrals. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

That sounds about right to me. --Nick (talk) 10:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

→ Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#RFC: Airport article criteria and template. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I am sorry, but these criteria do not make much sense to me, because: i) most airports have at least one shop and one cafe; ii) most airports are places where "a person might be spending several hours" (e.g., waiting for an early morning flight). Previously, I have mentioned that airports like Tallinn do not merit their own articles, but the proposed criteria would facilitate the creation of stub articles about these and even smaller airports. --Alexander (talk) 20:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think the criteria here would mean that airports would have to have a number of shops and place to eat. I'm also not sure that articles that people create for airports necessarily have to fit particularly strict criteria - as long as they help the traveller and are long enough to fill a separate article, but too long to fit comfortably into the article for the town/city they serve, then it's probably worth making an article about it. Any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I believe that the only working criterion is the amount of information already present in the city article. This can be, for example, the length limit of four paragraphs, or an equivalent word count. --Alexander (talk) 21:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

How about as a proportion of the entire article or the 'Get in' section - more than 1/2 of the 'Get in' section? --Nick (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

There has been a fair amount of discussion already on this subject, and the point has been made that there is value in having articles for large airports regardless of how much content was already placed in a city article. As Nick says, an airport with a single food option won't pass the test of "enough information for an "Eat and Drink" section. Similarly, the requirement that the airport service connecting flights eliminates the vast majority of small airports that are only used as initial departure or final destination stops. As a result, I don't think throwing out the criteria that we have already discussed is a good idea - tweak them if needed, but let's not start over from scratch. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think you're right Ryan - the criteria that have been outlined are workable in my opinion. If we do have any problems, we can always add more. --Nick (talk) 22:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Then I don't understand the meaning of "fill out a "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" section". One cafe and one duty-free shop do fill out these sections. And I really see no difference between an airport with sporadic connecting flights and an airport without official connecting flights, but with early morning flights that require you to stay in the airport overnight. Finally, I see a huge problem of allowing hundreds of stub articles about (relatively) small airports that pass these criteria (Tallinn, Riga, Saint Petersburg, Rostov, Sochi, Ekaterinburg, Tyumen, Berlin Tegel, Lyon, Kiev Borispol, Minsk... do you still need more examples?). But I don't see any problem in prohibiting articles about large airports until we have enough information about them. --Alexander (talk) 22:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Would changing the criteria to be "the airport should have multiple restaurant and shopping options" be clearer? Also, regarding "a huge problem of allowing hundreds of stub articles about (relatively) small airports", I disagree that we'll immediately get hundreds of "stub" articles, and also disagree that having articles about airports like Saint Petersburg is a bad thing. Consider:

1. We have thousands of articles about small towns - would Wikivoyage be better off without those articles? If not, then what is the argument for not writing about large airports, most of which have more amenities and relevance to a traveler than a small town would?
2. There are a significant number of people who want to read and write articles about airports. Thousands of web sites are devoted to airline travel, airport lounges, and related topics, and many Wikivoyage users have expressed a desire to write such aritcles. Our premier guide - Chicago - has an airport article about O'Hare International Airport.
3. Our existing criteria for when an airport article is appropriate are relatively subjective ("Singularly huge and complex airports the size of small cities such as Kansai International Airport or Heathrow Airport... but not typical metropolitan or regional airports." - Wikivoyage:What is an article#Exceptions). The proposed criteria would be more broad, but also give us a guideline for airport article creation that is at least as clear as the "can you sleep there" test.
4. As someone noted earlier, having an airport article also allows us to consolidate information that might be copied into any number of articles about areas served by that airport. For example, today if you're writing about LAX, you're likely going to have to put that information into just about every article for cities and regions in Los Angeles County, making it more difficult for people who want information specifically about LAX to find it.
5. Finally, regarding the argument that airport information should always be in city articles, for years we've pruned lengthy airport information from city articles when it began getting too long rather than splitting it out into a separate article. The only times I'm aware that anyone has ever started an airport article, it was one that someone created from scratch.

We've got a relatively clear set of criteria and a committed group of people saying that airport articles are something they want to see Wikivoyage support, and I think it's a sign of a growing site when we expand our coverage in a structured and agreed-upon way. In addition, we've had several months of discussion on the subject and attempted to address outstanding concerns. I think everyone involved is willing to try to address any remaining concerns, but there should also be a responsibility for those who are skeptical to remain open to trying new things and work to find mutually-agreeable solutions. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Ryan, have you every been to Pulkovo, Saint Petersburg airport? It is a stinking hole (well, in fact, two stinking holes, because it has two terminals) and a shame of this nice city. Moreover, if you say we need a separate article about it, we also need articles about five main train stations (each of the same size as the airport), and of course separate articles about Hermitage, Russian Museum, etc.

"Multiple restaurant and shopping options" sounds as vague to me, because three cafes already means "multiple", and all small airports of my concern pass these criteria as well. I simply suggest that we do not create new airport articles until we have enough information for them. That's all. I don't suggest to forbid such articles completely, but I want to make sure that each of these new articles is well-motivated. In my opinion, this is a very simple, workable, and consistent approach to any articles about non-geographical destinations, like airports, train stations, museums, etc. --Alexander (talk) 08:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid I agree with Ryan here - we are extremely unlikely to be deluged with hundreds of stub article for tiny airstrips around the world when this policy comes into force. I think it's better to air on the side of freedom than to rigidly control what people write. If an airport article is deemed too small or insignificant, we can always merge it back into its city. --Nick (talk) 08:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

No stub airport articles will be merged back into their cities, because the proposed criteria are too soft, and most airports fulfill them. And the problem is more general. As soon as many airports deserve their own articles, train stations merit them as well. Then come museums (yes, you can't stay in the museum overnight, but you can find a hotel nearby), big shopping malls, and so on.

Anyway, you requested for the comment, and you have got one. That's all from my side. --Alexander (talk) 09:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that we can ignore the possibility of people creating loads of articles about tiny airports. On Wikipedia it looks like every railway station in the UK has an article, including those with almost no facilities like . So I would suggest that we have a criteria based on the flights operating from the airport. So we only have articles about airports with more than 20 departures per day to more than 5 destinations including 1 which is over 2000 miles (3000 km) away. This would include almost all airports used for connections (and where the traveler is not interested in a city guide). AlasdairW (talk) 14:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I very much like adding the "number of flights" restriction and "number of destinations" restriction, and might suggest we use higher numbers - what about 50 daily flights and 20 destinations? 20 flights would mean an approximate average of only one flight per hour, so a larger number should definitely eliminate most small airports. The "2000 miles away" restriction might be trickier since routes change frequently and tiny, remote airports will have longer routes than busy airports in densely-populated areas.

To Alexander, the feedback is appreciated, although I'm concerned that many discussions here get derailed when people's contributions are essentially "I don't support that" rather than "these are my concerns and here are some suggestions to address them". In this case, if the concern is that we'll get too many airport articles that are of dubious value, suggestions for tightening creation criteria to reduce that possibility would be hugely helpful. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think that I have come up with the most simple suggestion: to start a separate article about an airport as soon as its description becomes too long (4-5 paragraphs is a good threshold, I believe). I really have nothing else to say here. --Alexander (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps combine the two, but keep it vague and see what happens?

Airport articles should be created when the facility in question has outgrown the 'Get in' section of the city it serves and/or if the airport serves more than 20 different destinations and hosts 50 daily departures. --Nick (talk) 22:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I do like Alexander's idea, but I think the threshold should be something like airport size (ex. Intercontinental airport? Yes. Municipal Airport that has 1 airline? No.).

I am repeatedly trying to explain that different parts of the world host very different airports. You may easily have a small airport with a large number of departures (Berlin Tegel, Riga), but we also have big train stations, which exceed these airports in size (again, Berlin is a good example). There are many borderline cases that should be treated on a consensus basis, and it is much easier to build consensus about every new article of this type rather than to develop stringent criteria (number of cafes, flights, passengers) that won't cover all possible situations. --Alexander (talk) 09:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps a series of guidelines, as well as the suggestion that consensus is desirable? My only fear with seeking consensus for every article is that it slow things down a lot. Either way, it would be nice to get this sorted sooner rather than later. --Nick (talk) 16:15, 10 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Bump - are we any closer to making this policy 'live' now? --Nick (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps we need a few more example articles -- a yellow light rather than green, if you will. If that will help Wikivoyagers become more comfortable with the idea. I'd be willing to take a stab at Orlando International Airport, for instance. LtPowers (talk) 23:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

If you'd be willing to do that, that would be great! That would then give us 3 demo articles (Frankfurt, Manchester and Orlando), as well as the 3 (I think!) pre-existing huge ones. :) --Nick (talk) 23:08, 12 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Do we now need to try and bring the (edit:) 4 'huge' articles in to line with the new template? --Nick (talk) 12:48, 13 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

The Wikivoyage:Airport Expedition is at a point now where a proposal for creating airport articles and a template for those articles has reached some consensus. The criteria for airport articles would be that the airport services connecting flights and has enough food and shopping options to fill out an entire "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" section, which should limit these articles to only large airports where travelers will find an airport guide useful.

The template can be viewed at Wikivoyage:Airport Expedition#Template and in a live article at Frankfurt airport. We already allow articles for large airports, but this would make airport articles less of an exception and also update the template used to include more things that flyers are looking for, like information about airport lounges, airlines, and airport transportation. Please provide your feedback at Wikivoyage talk:Airport Expedition. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I found this page here on WV quite by accident. It appears to be a worldwide list of cities and their corresponding airports - is this something we can use perhaps: either as a future basis for a directory (admittedly some (a lot) of the airports listed look fairly small and not deserving of articles) or just a means of considering which airports to tackle? Any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 22:21, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've copied its contents here. --Nick (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

What would be the best way to deal with the four pre-existing airport articles? Should we change them to fit the new template or leave them as they are? --Nick (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think they should be updated to the new format. —The preceding comment was added by Traveler100 (talk • contribs)

Working on the presumption that some suitable criteria are agreed upon (see above), which airports should be our priority to create new articles for? I would suggest JFK, Charles De Gaulle, Schiphol, Dallas Fort-Worth and Hong Kong would be good starting points. Any other suggestions? Also, could we perhaps work a Collaboration of the Month into this somehow? --Nick (talk) 20:18, 17 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'll throw Singapore and Sydney into the ring, though I haven't had much time to write. I see Changi has been voted top airport again :) so plenty to write about, plus Sydney would be a major one in Oceania and it is way too complex trying to get to/from the airport. The main puzzle is how much info would remain within the main city article itself, so do we wing it, or write up some guidelines for that? -- Torty3 (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Newark and Atlanta are also huge airports. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like good suggestions for airports. As I said above, articles about airports would be especially useful for those who are transferring from one flight to another. That's why I'd definitely like to add LAX (major transfer airport between Trans Pacific and intra North American flights) and Dubai (Europe/Africa and Asia/Oceania) to the list. Ypsilon (talk) 16:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree - they're all good suggestions. I'd like (at some point) to find a way to make this a workable COTM as we have a lot of areas to cover. If no-one else has commented on the criteria (above) by this evening I'll implement them and we'll get started. --Nick (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think on the same basis that Ypsilon mentions LAX and Dubai, Miami is a hub for a lot of flights across the Caribbean and, therefore, transfers from places elsewhere in the US, Canada, Europe, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'd suggest that at least initially, rather than trying to get an article started for specific airports that we instead let people with good knowledge create articles for airports they know well - for my part, time permitting I'm anxious to start one on LAX as it is a huge airport that I use frequently, and I think other frequent fliers here will feel similarly about their local airport. General consensus in the past has been that one or two well-developed articles are far more valuable than a few dozen skeletons, so I think we want to follow that precedent and focus on letting people create articles about airports they know well rather than approaching the issue by trying to tackle major airports that we might not have much direct knowledge about. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely Ryan, you're right. I don't intend to start any of these articles, only add them to the 'Future targets' list so people can see where we're aiming. I'd hope that people who know these airports well would be prepared to pick one off the list and perhaps plunge forward, whilst people who don't could choose airports with which they are familiar and build them up. --Nick (talk) 22:37, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Here's some more worth considering. This list is based on w:World's busiest airports by passenger traffic and busiest by continent list combined with my best guess as to which airports have the most international (and domestic for the U.S. since it's huge and English-speaking) connecting traffic—the most likely demographic to need a useful guide to the airport—and those airports which are major hubs. Bold are the most-needed guides, italics are for major airports with a large volume of origin/destination passengers, Bolded/italicised airports are major hubs which also have a significant amount of O/D traffic. Airports for which articles already exist or are already listed as "future targets" aren't included. They are listed by importance (in my opinion).

• US: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (American Airlines, Southwest), Washington-Dulles International Airport (United), Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (Delta), Denver International Airport (United, Frontier), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (US Airways), San Francisco International Airport (United), LaGuardia Airport (New York...American, Delta, JetBlue), Houston-Bush Intercontinental Airport (United), Charlotte International Airport (US Airways), McCarran International Airport (Las Vegas...Southwest), Philadelphia International Airport (US Airways), Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport (Delta), Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (Delta)
• Canada: Toronto Pearson International Airport, Montreal-Trudeau International Airport
• Central America: Benito Juárez International Airport (Mexico City...2nd busiest in Latin America), Tocumen International Airport (Copa Airlines hub)
• South America: São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport (busiest in Latin America), Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, Benítez International Airport (Santiago...LAN hub), El Dorado International Airport (Bogota), Pistarini International Airport (Buenos Aires), Jorge Chávez International Airport (Lima)
• Africa: O.R. Tambo International Airport (Johannesburg...busiest in Africa), Bole International Airport (Addis Ababa...Ethiopian Airlines hub), Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (Nairobi...Kenya Airways hub), Cairo International Airport (2nd busiest in Africa), Mohammed V International Airport (Casablanca...Royal Air Maroc hub)
• Europe: Barajas Airport (Madrid...Iberia hub), London Gatwick Airport, Munich Airport, Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport (Rome), Domodedovo International Airport (Moscow), Copenhagen Airport-Kastrup, Zürich Airport, Sheremetyevo International Airport (Moscow)
• Middle East: Atatürk International Airport (Istanbul...Turkish Airlines hub), Doha International Airport (Qatar Airways hub), Ben Gurion Airport (Tel Aviv)
• South/Eastern Asia: Beijing Capital International Airport (busiest airport in Asia), Tokyo-Narita Airport (All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, Delta, & United hub), Seoul-Incheon International Airport, Guangzhou-Baiyun International Airport, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (Jakarta), Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Mumbai), Shanghai-Pudong International Airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport (Bangkok)
• Oceania: Melbourne Airport, Auckland Airport

AHeneen (talk) 04:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've now changed the policy following the above discussion, so we're now free to go ahead and create more suitable airport articles. Please feel free to plunge forward! --Nick (talk) 20:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

These guys are giving awards. Interesting that Vancouver is the only North American airport in the top twenty. Pashley (talk) 12:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

It really is quite interesting! It looks like airports in Asia are doing particularly well. Could this be a useful list to plan which articles to make next? --Nick (talk) 19:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

A rough consensus has emerged: Since there is a new template for airport articles, corresponding status tags should be created. Follow-up actions: Template:Outlineairport and similar tags have now been created. Added by: Ryan • (talk) • 20:09, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is there any future in this idea? Copied from above:

So should airports be tagged as cities with {{outlinecity}} and {{usablecity}} or should we create a new tag type such as outlineairport and starairport. Alternatively make it a little less specific such as port or hub in case there are any sea ports or bus terminals that are notable enough to be useful to travellers. Traveler100 (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Personally I do like the sound of of outlineport - any thoughts? --Nick (talk) 15:00, 20 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

There is a related discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Article templates#Island articles status tags. I don't think that status tags for airports need to be a priority right now, but if/when we have more of them then new status tags will almost certainly be needed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes, outlineairport, etc. That would be my vote.Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

How about "transit"?

• "Template:outlinetransit" This transit-related article is an outline and needs more content. It has a template, but there is not enough information present. Please plunge forward and help it grow!

• "Template:useabletransit" This is a usable article. It gives a good overview of the facility, routes/destinations served, how to get in/around, and points/objects of interest to persons traveling through this facility. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow!

• "Template:guidetransit" This is a guide article. It has well developed information throughout the entire article. Plunge forward and help us make it a star!

• "Template:startransit" This is a star article. It is a high-quality article complete with maps, photos, and great information about the transit facility. If you know of something that has changed, please plunge forward and help it grow! Could replace "transit facility" with a parameter for facility name, eg. {{startransit|airport}}.

Only problem would be the exact wording of the template so that it can be applicable to airports, ports, railroad stations, significant bus terminals, and significant intermodal terminals. For example, using the term "routes" instead of "flights" and permitting the section header to be renamed to "Flights" or "Destinations" (my preference) for airports, "Services" for intermodal terminals, & "Lines" for railroad stations. AHeneen (talk) 03:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we have any consensus to start writing non-airport transit articles. LtPowers (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't either, and I can't think of any bus terminal/trains stations/etc. big and complex enough to even consider it. I do, however, think we should get a tag going for airports sooner rather than later, and I'd say just to use "outlineairport", "usableairport", etc. Even if we did end up sometime in the future deciding that we want other types of transit hub articles, they likely wouldn't be of the same template type.Texugo (talk) 20:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree - "outlineairport" sounds better; let's go with that. --Nick (talk) 20:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Tags created, summary of templates and categories at Wikivoyage:Article status stats. The Wikivoyage:Airport guide status needs some work as I simply copied it from the city one. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is this considered an acceptable level of summary for main articles when pulling out the airport information? If "By plane" sections as useless as this are going to be the result of this expedition, then we should seriously reconsider whether we should be making airport articles at all. LtPowers (talk) 20:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Chicago#By plane passed a star nomination, and thus seems like the obvious example to follow when writing a "By plane" section for a city with a separate airport article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Ryan's right - Chicago provides an excellent example. The NYC one probably is a bit short at present, but we'll sort it out. --Nick (talk) 20:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

That's about the minimum amount of information I would expect. The NYC one is more than "a bit" short, it's been absolutely gutted. That should not be acceptable. LtPowers (talk) 17:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm just trying to stay positive about other people's work. What would you like to see covered in the 'By plane' sections of affected articles? We probably do need some guidelines on this issue. --Nick (talk) 18:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

The same information we put in any other By plane section, just with less detail than we might normally use. The JFK blurb should explain what it is, where it's located, how to get there (in less detail than in the airport article), and the top few airlines that fly in and out. It should also speak to what kind of amenities are available in the immediate area, if not within the airport itself. LtPowers (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

There should probably be a prominent "For more information see: airport article." or "See airport article for more details." so that people glancing through realize there's a separate article. This is especially important for people printing or saving an electronic copy for offline use. AHeneen (talk) 03:16, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hey guys, so if we are going to be creating all these airport articles, it's important that we remember to link them, not just from the city which shares its name or whatever, but from all the other suburbs and nearby destinations that mention the airport in their Get in sections. Texugo (talk) 20:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

You're absolutely right. We also need to change redirects that don't point to the new articles but the 'By plane' section of a city. --Nick (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've frequently created a link in city pages to the nearest major airport as [[cityname#By plane|airport name]] or [[cityname#airportname|airport name]]. To allow for airport articles that, if created today, would only be stubs but are likely to be created in the future, would it be appropriate to go ahead and create a large number of redirects? For example, Charlotte Douglas International Airport so that articles can link to that and be taken to Charlotte#By plane but allow for the airport article to be written in the future without much issue?

On a related note, how can I easily search for "Cityname#By plane" or "Cityname#airportname", especially if it is hidden (ie. [[city#by plane|airport name]])?? Entering that in the search leads directly to the section. Using a search engine to search "site:en.wikivoyage.org" wouldn't hit on these hidden links. AHeneen (talk) 03:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

On another related note, when creating a new airport article (or any other article), be sure to add a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article under the "External links" section using either w:Template:Sister project links or w:Template:Wikivoyage-inline. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:49, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've just been through some of the articles we're working on at the moment and it looks like, in several cases, it's well worth going back through the revision history as many pages have been created and then cleared before the new airports policy came into effect, so there is information out there that we can salvage. Whilst some of it may be out of date, it's a good way to build up a good 'bed' of content quickly. --Nick (talk) 00:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

One of the most useful things on Wikipedia airport articles is the table of airlines & destinations (example), which I've used countless times to write "Get in#By plane" and "Get around#By plane" sections for cities, countries, and a continent as well as for personal reference. Tables like these would be a valuable reference for our guides. How about a paragraph or two highlighting major routes or odd cases, like "there are just 3 flights a week on Big Airline to Paradise Island" or "The busiest route out of Major Airport is to City A - a major hub for Airlines A & B that connect this airport with many major world destinations. It is served by 6 airlines and 18 flights per day!" as well as highlighting airline hubs and destinations. Then follow with a subsection titled "Routes" or "Airlines and destinations", which would contain a table just like Wikipedia. The Aviation WikiProject is great at keeping these lists up-to-date even for the smallest of airports and in the most remote corners of the globe. Some day, this would be a great subject to synch with WP via Wikidata. AHeneen (talk) 03:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely! Tables listing the airlines and their destinations would be really good if they're up to date - especially budget airlines frequently remove and add destinations. Ypsilon (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Which is why I'm reluctant to include them; in this case, out-of-date information may be worse than no information at all. Keeping them up to date could be a tall order. LtPowers (talk) 15:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC);;Reply

I second that reluctance. I might feel different if it could be linked to WP someday, giving us a much larger group of people updating.Texugo (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, for now links to Wikipedia are not permitted. Could an exception be made in this case, if you feel out-of-date information may be a problem? Anyone able to write a bot to keep these lists up-to-date? AHeneen (talk) 22:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

That does sound like a nice idea - I too have found those tables very useful when travelling. Is it do-able? --Nick (talk) 23:19, 27 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

An example has been placed in Orlando International Airport#Flights. The only issue may be that ticketing locations and phone numbers don't really belong in a section titled "flights", but it wouldn't make sense to add a second table with this info. Thoughts? AHeneen (talk) 00:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think it's too much, personally. It's useful information to have, yes, but it's also readily available from other sources, and it's subject to change without much notice. LtPowers (talk) 01:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is it really useful to list all destinations of an airport? The reason I believe not is that this is information that will inevitably get out of date quickly, whereas the official web page of the airport will always have the latest information. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Would this expedition and/or some of the aspects it covers make a good candidate for CotM? It would be quite nice to see a 'big bang' of activity on articles of this kind to get us going and improve that articles that have already been created. --Nick (talk) 20:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes, of course. LtPowers (talk) 21:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I would suggest we wait at least 1-2 months so that we can gain some experience creating good airport articles before unleashing the masses. For example, it will be good to have questions like the one above about flight tables considered, as well as other issues that come up in the initial airport article creation process. Once we've got a handful of airport articles at guide status I think it will be safer to invite the masses to use them as guides to create more articles, which should lead to a more successful COTM. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that makes sense; I think I'll withdraw that nomination. --Nick (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

A couple of the articles we've made so far (Singapore Changi Airport and OR Tambo International Airport) have optional stay safe sections, which seems a good idea. However, they're in different places in each article (above 'Nearby' in OR Tambo; below it in Singapore) - where would they fit best? --Nick (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

My vote would be for above it, to be consistent with our other article templates. PerryPlanet (talk) 23:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes, we should match our usual section order as closely as possible, per Wikivoyage:Article templates/Sections. LtPowers (talk) 02:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I've moved the one in Singapore up. --Nick (talk) 09:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Many large cities have secondary airports that handle mostly domestic routes and also a few international routes.

These secondary airports take up some space on the page of the city, whereas the primary airport needs to redirect the user to a separate page.

Assuming the secondary airport is significant enough, there any thoughts as to how these secondary airports could be managed?

Examples include:

--Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:02, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any reason to treat the secondary airports any differently. If they're big enough to qualify for an article, then they get an article; otherwise, their information is placed in the city article. LtPowers (talk) 11:57, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think LtPowers is right - if they fit our criteria, then they deserve an article, even if articles for other airports in that city already exist. :) --Nick (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

To me it looks a little strange that a city article would have more lines of text to its secondary airport than its primary airport. Nevertheless, if nobody has a good way to address it then I agree to leave them as they are. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think the suggestion is that these would probably be worthy candidates for their own articles. I'm most familiar with LaGuardia Airport, and I certainly think it's used enough to be worthy of its own article, even though, unfortunately (because it's closest to the city and most convenient for me), it's becoming more difficult to find inexpensive flights to and from there. I will leave you to your own judgment on the others, but I would definitely consider Gatwick worthy of its own article. It's London's second airport, and there's actually another airport named Stansted that I flew to Belfast from, via Ryanair, in 2010. A Stansted Airport article would not be a priority because it's a relatively small airport (though not tiny), but I doubt anyone would object to a Gatwick Airport article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any reason why the secondary airport text would be longer than the primary airport text in the main article. Even with the primary airport having an article of its own, the information there should be summarized in the city article just like airports without articles. LtPowers (talk) 03:13, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

The reason is that there's information in "Get in/By plane" for the secondary airport that would be moved to a dedicated airport article that hasn't been created yet, whereas similar information about the primary airport(s), which was originally longer, was already moved to an airport article, with only a brief summary remaining. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:49, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Ikan, much better explanation than mine. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Again, I don't see why. The "brief summary" should include exactly the same information as a permanent summary that doesn't link to another article. LtPowers (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think the reason this hasn't been adopted is that there is no consistency between our permanent summaries. Some are extremely long and almost usurp the article they form a part of; others consist of just a few lines. I think when splitting in to a new article, the summary on the city page should be closer to the latter. To my mind, we need to give a brief overview of the airport, the airlines that serve it and a quick mention of facilities, alongside a special emphasis on getting between the airport and the city in question. --Nick ^talk 14:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

London is an interesting example, since Gatwick is in fact a Primary airport in its own right. Stansted is also a significant airport in its own right and not really a secondary airport either. I'd say they each merit their own page. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I would agree. The only problem I could foresee with a Stansted article is that, unless things have changed much since 2010, there isn't much there other than a terminal (just one, I seem to remember). I don't remember much in the way of amenities, and it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. So while I certainly wouldn't mind a Stansted Airport article, I think there are quite a lot of other airports that are more in need of coverage here, very much including Gatwick. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree with all of the above. I think Stansted probably could support its own article (there's a lot of material) in London, but it's probably not a priority for the moment. --Nick (talk) 10:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I really think that it would be better to classify airports based on relative importance rater than size, as far as the tourists using wikivoyage. For now it's probably best to put in airports serving major destinations and connecting flights. We also might want to focus on hard-to navigate ones. Also, I would like to complement the people who came up with using Wikipedia. the airport articles are pretty good there.

How would you suggest we judge importance? Also, please sign your username like with 4 tildes in a row this when you post to talk pages: ~~~~ Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hi there! Welcome aboard! So far we have been trying to combine both of those aspects when choosing airports to work on, but editors' familiarity with a particular airport is also important. The airports in our 'Future targets' list are generated by a multi-million dollar proprietary algorithm picked from a number suggested on this talk page (above) by other users and marked for their importance. Articles of this nature are fairly new here, but we're working through a good number and you can see our progress on the expedition page itself. If you've any thoughts on good airports to aim for, please do let us know, or plunge forward and create an article yourself. :)

As for Wikipedia, we are keen to distance ourselves somewhat from that project as well as taking advantage of what is available there. We aim to have a very different written style and the templates we use are also a major break from what is used over there. Despite this, we do recognise that some things there can be really useful (particularly items that actually fit better here than there) and articles there can be very informative when writing our guides.

It's great to hear from you and I do hope you consider creating a user account so we can give you credit for what's rightfully yours! Cheers! --Nick ^talk 01:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

In the discussion that resulted in the inception of this project, Alexander expressed serious doubts about the possibility of lots of stub articles about small airports. Here's one salient remark:

"I am repeatedly trying to explain that different parts of the world host very different airports. You may easily have a small airport with a large number of departures (Berlin Tegel, Riga), but we also have big train stations, which exceed these airports in size (again, Berlin is a good example). There are many borderline cases that should be treated on a consensus basis, and it is much easier to build consensus about every new article of this type rather than to develop stringent criteria (number of cafes, flights, passengers) that won't cover all possible situations."

I mentioned above that I thought it would be fine for there to be an article about London Stansted Airport, but that it was not a priority. The article was started, and I already like it and see that it is useful (in particular, the "Sleeping at Stansted Airport" infobox has information that travellers can really use), though of course it is a work in progress. Then an article was started about London Luton Airport. No consensus had been reached; a user just plunged forward and started the article. I think the jury's out on just how good or useful the article may be when more work is done on it. But now, with an article having been started on London's 5th airport, London City Airport, I have to call into question just how well our efforts at reaching a consensus are going. With all due appreciation for the initiative that people are taking, and a general tip of the hat to all of you who are doing such great work on this project, I think that before more work is done on the London City Airport article, it would be best if those of us who are knowledgeable about that airport (which doesn't include me - I never heard of it) would discuss just how important or large that airport is. But I will end by saying that if Alexander doesn't think there should be an article on Tegel, which remains the main airport for the metropolis of Berlin until Brandenburg Airport is finally finished, I feel sure he is shaking his head about the articles about Luton Airport and London City Airport (though of course he can speak for himself if he so chooses).

So have at it: London City Airport, yes or no, and why or why not? And let's have the same discussion about Luton Airport. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:35, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Not yet, or at least not a priority - I'm loath to say never on matters such as this, but I'm not sure Luton or City Airports are truly large enough for their own specific articles. Luton is a small-ish airport served mainly by low-cost and charter airlines (not unlike Liverpool John Lennon Airport, which is yet to get its own article). London City is a small commuter airport in central London which offers largely domestic and short-haul routes with the odd international flight (I think BA offers a service to New York from there). Neither airport is huge or even large, although I dare say a case could be made for their existence. My reaction would be this: keep them for a week as they are. If the articles are not full/nearly full and remain fairly blank stubs, we merge them back into London. If they've grown exponentially and are of use, we should probably keep them, but make our policy on here clearer - that, at least for now, we are focussing on large airports and are not yet seeking to give every airport in the world its own entry. --Nick ^talk 12:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I thought that already was made clear. It's just that some people have plunged forward without trying to gain a consensus. I salute them for their initiative but think that we do want to prevent things from spiraling out of control. I'm OK with waiting for a week, but I could foresee the possibility that work on small airport articles could result in more content than we'd want to merge back into the city article but not enough for a good airport article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:39, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes, you're right. Beyond putting BIG AIRPORTS ONLY! at the top of this page I'm not sure we can make it much clearer. I too think it's great that people are getting involved, but you're right, we need to draw the line somewhere. Maybe merge back now then and put a discrete message on people's talk pages? --Nick ^talk 12:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I definitely agree that Luton and City shouldn't have their own articles. I thought our approach was going to be that we would only create an article if there was enough that you could say about that airport that it would overwhelm the Get in section. I feel like this has less to do with how "big" an airport is and more with how overwhelming or confusing it is (for instance, Denver is one of the busiest airports in the U.S., but the layout is so intuitive I would never suggest giving it an entire article). Heathrow and Gatwick made sense because they're so massive and busy that they can get confusing, while Stansted made sense because it's so distant that you need to write up a lot of content just about getting there. PerryPlanet (talk) 12:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I just found Washington Dulles International Airport, and the content there is way too small to be worth its own article. Oh look, there's a chapel. Whoopee. Either it needs to be expanded greatly, or merged back into Washington, D.C.. LtPowers (talk) 13:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm glad to get a second opinion on that (I was starting to have some doubts about it myself), so I think I will merge the content back to D.C. I recall being really bewildered by the layout of that place and thought it might make a useful article, but now that I look back on it, it does indeed seem unjustified. PerryPlanet (talk) 14:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Based on this discussion, I'm going to put merge tags on London City Airport and London Luton Airport. It looks straightforward to simply copy and paste the entirety of the text of London City Airport into the London article, while on a cursory inspection, the Luton Airport info in the London guide should have the first paragraph of the Luton Airport guide added to it and seems to have the rest of the content of the airport article already. Does anyone have any objection to this course of action? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:40, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think that sounds fair; I'll have a look at how they can be merged now. --Nick ^talk 00:54, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I just looked at the airports section of London above, and it is really long! (Basically scroll down twice on a 24 inch monitor to read it all) Is there anything to be said for a separate 'London Airports' article? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

My tendency would be to say "no," as we have articles about Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted. But perhaps some of that section could be edited or removed for brevity. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:15, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely; that sounds like a good idea to me. I'm sure some bits could be cut. --Nick ^talk 08:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Does George Bush Intercontinental Airport (Houston airport) deserve an article? I wanted to know before I requested or created it. Does Paris Charles de Gualle qualify? —The preceding comment was added by 68.50.233.28 (talk • contribs)

I don't know enough about Houston to say, but Charles de Gaulle already has an article. PerryPlanet (talk) 16:21, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

It's the 8th busiest airport in the US and 3rd busiest in the US as far as international traffic is concerned. It has five terminals. Does that help? —The preceding comment was added by 68.50.233.28 (talk • contribs)

I guess Houston does qualify. I have never been, although I believe there are many transfers to Latin American destinations through it. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:00, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely! As a major hub for one of the biggest airlines in the world—United—and the primary airport for the 4th largest city in the U.S.—Houston—there are both plenty of connecting passengers as well as origin/destination traffic. AHeneen (talk) 05:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is it a large airport and a major transit hub (and preferably, someone has more information to add than just the two lines from the Houston article...), then it deserves its own article. I think Houston airport does. Ypsilon (talk) 19:21, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

To avoid future confusion, the criteria for when it is OK to create an airport article can be found at Wikivoyage:What is an article#Exceptions and is copied below for reference:

Singularly huge and complex airports the size of small cities such as Kansai International Airport or Heathrow Airport (formatted using the Project:Airport article template)

...but not typical metropolitan or regional airports. Some specific guidelines as to when an airport merits its own article:

• It should serve at least 100 daily flights, some of which must be connecting flights.
• It must have several food and shopping options available; if the airport does not have enough amenities to fill out a "Buy" and "Eat and Drink" section then it does not merit its own article.

-- Ryan • (talk) • 19:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Ryan, I think we've bent that a little bit already. I don't think London Stansted Airport is the size of a small city, and it's certainly not remotely close to comparable in size to Heathrow, but I think most of us agree that the Stansted Airport article is useful for travellers and too long and detailed to be appropriate as a section of the