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As I understand it, if there are 100 flights every day at an airport, it can have its own article. So, why doesn't Salt Lake City's airport have an article? According to the article for Salt Lake City, there are more than 120 flights a day at the airport (for one airline, imagine what the total number must be). If it wasn't already clear, I propose we create an article for the airport at Salt Lake, but I would probably need help from others. I'm not sure about SJC, but I expect it's pretty high, as it seems from the wikipedia article.
Over the years, I would think the number of airport with at least 100 flights a day has increased dramatically, and this may not show in our Wikivoyage articles. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:56, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It is not about number of flight but about what there is to say about the airport. If the airport is a major hub with many services catering for passenger such as restaurants, shops, entertainment and hotels then it can have its own article. However even in those cases you should start by expanding the information about the airport on the city page. When the amount of information start to dominate and get out of hand there, then move to its own article. Do not create an article that is almost empty just because it could or should deserve its own article. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:10, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think Traveler100 is right: you're putting the cart before the horse. When there is enough info on an airport in a city article to warrant splitting it out, then create an airport article. Don't create an airport article just because it could qualify. I'm not discouraging you from creating new content, I'm just saying that Salt Lake City and San Jose airports don't need their own articles yet. As for me, I'd rather spend time creating content for and cleaning up destination articles, than creating new airport articles, but you're free to work on whatever you want to work on. Ground Zero (talk)
Ditto from me as well.
I was going to ask where "100 flights per day" came from, but then I found it on What is an article. In any case, that's a poor metric. 100 flights per day is a very small number. Just picking an arbitrary example, Indianapolis's airport sees more than 300 commercial flights per day, but it's certainly not significant or complex enough to merit its own article.
WV:Airport Expedition has another set of criteria, and taken in conjunction I would hope that the underlying intention is clear: it's not about the number of flights or the physical size or any such measurable numbers, it's about how "difficult" is the airport for travellers. Airports by design tend to be laid out similarly and are usually easy to navigate. If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. The airports we create articles for are the exceptions: they're so huge that their layouts require explanation rather than letting travellers just read the signs, and/or they're places where travellers are likely to spend a few hours or more and will want to know which of the hundreds of restaurants are good or where they can sleep.
Having done some editing on it recently, I would actually say that Orlando International Airport is an example of an airport that maybe doesn't need to be an article. It's not a hub, the layout looks fairly simple, and there's a paltry selection of restaurants, almost all of which are chains, and few that are good enough to recommend. The most useful information there is ground transportation, but that could be folded back into the city article if necessary.
100 flights is a simple objective minimum (defined in 2013). In some cases finding the number of flights means counting them on a list of departures, and I don't fancy counting 250 or 500 on a list when discussing an article. I think that it is useful to have articles for international transit airports, and I am not sure what limit would start to limit these (which includes isolated islands where all flights are international). AlasdairW (talk) 21:24, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Okay, but still, I think WV:What is an article should be changed at least a little in some way to reflect that the number of flights is not considered a standard for what is a large airport and what is not. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 21:38, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
London Stansted is a good example of earlier arguments. It's well over the 100 flights threshold, it's not particularly huge, but it merits detail that would unbalance a simple "get in" listing. Although it's badged "London" it's some way out, forming a little township in its own right. (The residents of historic Stansted are understandably peeved at this.) There are various little quirks and crafty wrinkles that the traveller might appreciate knowing. By contrast London Luton is almost as busy but is sufficiently described under "Luton". Grahamsands (talk) 10:19, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Another good example is Mactan-Cebu International Airport which is currently a redirect to a section of a city article. There's a fair bit of text in the city article, but I (who wrote much of that text) do not think it needs its own article yet mainly because there's not a lot to say.
It might need an article soon; they've just opened a new terminal and are adding a second runway. w:Mactan–Cebu International Airport says over 10 million passengers and over 86,000 flights (237/day on average) in 2017. My guess is it a good example of a borderline case; once someone adds text about the new terminal it might be worth moving it out. Pashley (talk) 11:04, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I agree about Mactan-Cebu International Airport. A lot of the length in that description comes from a laundry list of all the airlines and destinations, which I feel is something that does not belong in WV most of the time (not for a large hub airport like this). It's fine in WP where such encyclopedic knowledge is appropriate, and where there are more editors to keep such lists up to date. In WV, such a list is of minimal use to travelers. For offline reading, I can't imagine what use such information would be. Online, they can easily find the same information elsewhere if they need it, and many times they'll probably discover it themselves while searching for airfares. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I notice that the only Canadian airport with an article is Toronto Pearson International Airport. I think at the very least, the airport in Vancouver should get its own article since it is one of the main North American gateways to East Asia, and arguably Montreal's airport is also significant enough to warrant its own article. Unfortunately, I've never been to Vancouver, while I've only been to Montreal once, so I'll most certainly need help if we go ahead with this. What do you guys think about listing these two under "Future Targets"? The dog2 (talk) 03:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good question. I've always thought Vancouver's airport is a borderline case. It's a gateway to East Asia as you say and it has good passenger volumes (25 mn last year (2018)). On the other hand, it's a pretty straightforward airport to navigate, there are only two terminals (excluding the South terminal, which very few people are going to use), one hotel on site, fairly typical airport shops and an average number of restaurants (which are mostly fast food). I also live in Vancouver, so the airport is just an in and out for me. I don't think I can add more that what's already in Vancouver#Get in. If someone has experience using it to connect/stay overnight, it would be good to get that perspective.
For Montreal, I've transited through it twice on connecting flights. My impression from those brief visits is it's a larger and more complicated airport to navigate than Vancouver. I was also looking for specific (in my mind) Montreal specialties of Montreal smoked meat and French croissants. From my experience, I think Montreal's airport would need an article more than Vancouver, but as I said above, Vancouver's airport is an in and out for me so that colours my perspective. -Shaundd (talk) 16:52, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can write a little when it comes to Montreal, but I've only been through the U.S. departures wing. Someone else will have to fill in for the domestic and international wings. And as far as statistics go, Vancouver is Canada's second busiest airport after Toronto, so it definitely has a higher passenger volume than Montreal even though Montreal may be a bigger city. The dog2 (talk) 17:12, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but remember: size and importance are not absolute criteria for whether an airport merits an article. If an airport is easy to navigate, and doesn't have many noteworthy restaurants or stores, then what else would there be to write about? I don't know anything about Vancouver to decide that, but want to make sure it's not forgotten after I spent some time editing Orlando International Airport and realized it possibly doesn't merit an article, either. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't know about the shops and restaurants at Vancouver since I've never been there. As for Montreal, there are several cafes and a duty free shop airside in the U.S. departures section, but no luxury brands like what you get in London Heathrow, Hong Kong or Tokyo Haneda international terminal. I guess I'm not the best person to judge but the only airport I've ever gotten lost in is Dubai (considering I've flown out of many major airports like JFK, Heathrow, Hong Kong, both of Tokyo's airports and Survarnabhumi), and that is because the signage to connecting flights in the arrival concourse is bad, and the staff were very unhelpful. The dog2 (talk) 18:28, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ottawahitech: That said, this is a travel guide, and given that Montreal-Mirabel Airport does not serve commercial passenger flights, an article for that airport is not appropriate. If you have enough information and want to create articles for Dorval and Vancovuer International Airport, go ahead. I've only flown out of the US departures section of Dorval, so that's the only part I can contribute to, while I've never been to Vancouver. The dog2 (talk) 17:44, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How do people feel about Vancouver Airport now? There has been an edit war about whether to keep most of the details of how to get from there to Vancouver in the Vancouver article or to move them (improperly, in my opinion) to the parent region article, and moving them to an airport article would solve that problem. However, the section on the airport at Vancouver#Get in is hardly overwhelming. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've never been to Vancouver so I won't be able to contribute much, but given that it's the main hub for flights from Canada to East Asia, and Canada's second busiest airport after Toronto, I don't see why we shouldn't have an article for it. The dog2 (talk) 18:13, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Vancouver finally got is airport article. The only other Canadian airport that could potentially merit an article now is Montreal, though in my experience, it was quite easy to navigate, at least for the U.S. departures section. The dog2 (talk) 20:33, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When both are potentially useful to the traveler, then why wouldn't we? For example, the Munich article seems to have a dynamic map of the current airport and a static drawing of future expansion plans. But in the DFW article, they feel a bit more redundant.
Yeah, in the DFW article the dynamic map doesn't seem to add much. I'd say evaluate it on a case-by-case basis, with the recognition that double maps are more often useful in airport articles than in most types of articles, due to the value of an airport map with clearly outlined and labeled terminals (harder to achieve with a dynamic map). —Granger (talk·contribs) 21:31, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Granger, I think you're right about the value of a simple map. An airport map could emphasize how to get there (highways, bus stations, parking lots, etc.), which general part of the airport you want to be in (Terminal A is over there), or how to get around once you're inside (trains between terminals, location of restaurants, etc.). Two or three maps that each do just one of those things well would often be better for the harried traveler than a single map that tries to be all things to all people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nominations for the removal of dynamic maps
I have listed here the articles which have dynamic maps that serve little or no purpose and, in my opinion, could be removed. Please feel free to support or oppose below.
Looking for opinions on the best way to handle airports currently closed due to conflict? This is particularly relevant for airports in Syria and Libya but there are a few others around the world. Should listings and references be:
kept with text stating currently not operational.
deleted from city, region and country pages.
commented out from city, region and country pages so can be added back later.
I would generally prefer 1, for the nearest city page, but it can commented out elsewhere. It is useful to the traveller to know that the airport has closed, as there will be information about the airport elsewhere. Even if the airport has stopped having commercial flights it may still be used by relief agencies, or for evacuation flights. AlasdairW (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have done so. It seems like a shame—airport hotels are probably a lot more useful all in one list than scattered through guides to boring suburbs that no one reads (I'm exaggerating a bit). Especially if reading the guide on mobile or even worse if printed out. But I think this is unavoidable, given the no gaps/no overlap part of the Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy. --PeterTalk06:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is really disappointing to see, and though I know that everyone involved has good intentions, this is a clear case of a policy being prioritized over the traveler (who's supposed to come first, after all). As anyone with experience there knows, O'Hare is an eco-system unto itself, connected to Chicago by a long, thin strip (due to old land-grab issues). Probably half (or more) of the city's hotel room capacity is around O'Hare, in hotels with "Chicago O'Hare" in the name. Would anyone argue that a traveler is better served by having to open several unmapped, outline suburb articles to compare O'Hare hotels and rates...or by having the "O'Hare" hotels in the O'Hare article? If there's a "compromise" to be made, it's better to inconvenience a policy than a traveler. Gorilla Jones (talk) 00:56, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You guys may be right, but you need to propose a change of policy at Wikivoyage talk:Airport Expedition, since your argument could be made just as well for several other airport articles (Frankfurt Airport comes to mind). Have a look at Wikivoyage talk:Airport Expedition#Airport template for current policy and discussion. The basic difficulty, though, is whether to allow duplication of listings; if so, in what discrete situations; and at what distance from airports we would draw the line on listings, other than actually within the airport. I don't think we would do better adopting ad hoc, inconsistent policies on these questions, but if you think we would, please make the argument there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:10, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're all in agreement that what makes most sense for travelers is to have a consolidated list on this article. The problem is in how to go about it. The reason we avoid duplicate listings (in general) is that it's too hard to keep them updated if they're in multiple articles. That would change if we had a listings database, though, and hopefully we will get that through Wikidata at some point. In the meantime, though, maybe we should just swallow our discomfort with duplicate listings in the case of airport articles? To Ikan Kekek's point about where to draw the line—in cases I'm familiar with, it's usually pretty obvious what is and what isn't an "airport hotel." I think we could leave that judgement to the discretion of our writers. --PeterTalk06:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I really think we really need to discuss this at Wikivoyage talk:Airport Expedition, because when things were discussed there, it wasn't at all obvious. How many miles away from the airport do we draw the line, or should we include every hotel that has a shuttle from the airport? Also, I thought we disallowed duplicate listings in large part because double listings constitutes touting, much of the time. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:46, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We don't allow duplicate listings within articles to prevent touting; we don't allow listings in more than one article because of no gap, no overlap. But these airport articles essentially exist outside the hierarchy, and it is not reasonable to ask readers to browse a bunch of bland suburban non-articles to find the listings. So I still think the biggest problem is keeping them updated across more than one article. As for what is an airport hotel? It's a hotel that wouldn't exist but for the airport. I'm much less concerned with that question, I guess, than others above—it seems easy. --PeterTalk07:00, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would demur on the idea that not allowing listings of the same hotel in more than one article is not an issue of touting. Many times, publicists have attempted to list the same hotel (restaurant, shop, etc.) in numerous articles. However, I get your main point, which is that airport articles are outside the geographic hierarchy. I'll be interested to see what others think, because I have doubts about that idea. Airports occupy discrete pieces of land. That said, the idea of listing "airport hotels" in Airport guides is reasonable - if we can agree on what an airport hotel is and is not. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely prefer the idea of having airport hotels included in the airport articles. Really huge airports (the kind that would be worthy of an article) are their own little worlds, and the many hotels that surround them are part of that system feeding into that airport. I understand Ikan's concern about deciding what is and is not an airport hotel (we probably don't want any hotel that happens to have a shuttle to the airport listing themselves in the airport article), but I think Peter has hit on the best definition. I don't think we need anything more specific than that; airport hotels generally have little to advertise on except their proximity to the airport. PerryPlanet (talk) 08:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any guidance on distinguishing airport hotels from non-airport hotels either, but if we are going to put those hotels in the airport article, I would prefer to continue avoiding duplication, which we can do by putting a note (perhaps templated) in the suburb article, saying "Additional airport hotels can be found in the article for XXX Airport.". Texugo (talk) 11:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
On the face of it, I strongly agree with Texugo. If "airport hotels" outside of airports will be listed in articles about airports (and I have no objection to this, providing that we can come to a workable agreement on what hotels are and are not "airport hotels"), they shouldn't be listed in any other article. I think it's unnecessary to create an exemption from the "one listing, site-wide" policy, and policing duplications by touters and well-meaning non-touters could become another time-waster if we open the door to duplicate listings in some cases (especially if the criteria are not extremely clearly defined). Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:12, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's great to have clearly defined and easily accessible policies, but they should never be absolute or applied without prioritising the traveller's interests, as Gorilla Jones points out. Earlier in this topic Peter suggested that our current policy is no "...duplicate listings within articles to prevent touting..." (which seems sensible) whereas you seem to be suggesting "one listing, site-wide" is our current policy. Where can I actually read our current policy, please? Obviously if and when the database for listings arrives, the update problem will cease, but in the meantime I would prefer to clarify that Peter's version of policy actually applies.--W. Franke-mailtalk12:33, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Also note that businesses should be listed in only one article [emphasis supplied] for the town or district in which the business operates; if an article about the town has not yet been created, create it." —The preceding comment was added by Ikan Kekek (talk • contribs)
I think Ikan Kekek's assertion is correct. It follows logically from the combination of our no gaps/no overlaps geographical breakdown and the fact that we don't allow city listings to be duplicated in region articles (Template:Movetocity) and we don't allow district listings to be duplicated in main city articles (Template:Movetodistrict. Given these other policies, there are no cases left where duplication between articles would be allowed. Texugo (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the case, then we need to create an exception clearly enunciated in the relevant policies for the clearly defined category of Airports that have their own articles (they have their own templates, eg: {{guideairport}}). --W. Franke-mailtalk12:55, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is precisely the notion Ikan and I are objecting to. It would be better not to create a loophole for hotel touts to get their hotel listed twice, and simply point the suburb article reader to the airport article for additional airport hotel listings. Texugo (talk) 13:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Better for whom?
The jetlagged and weary traveller with a small screen and a bad connection (and, unavoidably, the airport hotel that might unavoidably get listed in two different pages) or
editors that might not be able to explain quickly/adequately/convincingly that the double listing being removed is not an "Airport hotel"? Sorry! I didn't read your argument carefully enough. I now see that your proposition is to list "Airport hotels" in the large and well written (almost by definition) Airport article and have the (probably already sparse and sad) suburban article's "Sleep" section (probably) just contain a pointer to the Airport article for hotel listings. That seems reasonable and I would support that. --W. Franke-mailtalk13:15, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also think the no gap/no overlap policy has served the guides well, but listing airport hotels in suburbian semi-non-articles doesn't make any sense. These hotels exist only because of passengers transferring flights, so readers will expect them in the airport articles. I do agree that a hotel listing should then only be listed in the airport article to avoid duplication. Globe-trotter (talk) 13:32, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone disagree that it's most helpful for the traveler to have airport hotels collected in one place (the airport article)? While my janitorial bent also makes me sensitive to anything that may benefit hotel chain owners, concerns for the traveler should come before concerns about marketers. It's not helpful for travelers to have hotels listed in destination guides other than the ones in which the listing is located, but that's not true in the case of airports. So ideally I think we have a listings database (so an update anywhere is an update everywhere), and we list them in the airport and the suburban semi-non-articles.
In any rate, the solution of keeping the listings in the airport article, and noting this in empty sleep sections of the semi-non-articles works for me as a second best option. Travelers really are just looking to scan one list for their preferred chain, not to crawl through articles like Elk Grove Village and Schiller Park—or even worse to print those all out? --PeterTalk18:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I really think it makes sense to stick to the "listing in one article only" guideline. If a hotel exists primarily to serve the airport then list it in the airport article and not in the city article. If a city is adjacent to an airport with lots of hotels, than a note in the city article's "Sleep" section to check the airport article avoids the need for duplication. We've all seen dozens (if not hundreds) of hotel listings for properties that are "conveniently located near XYZ airport", despite often being as far as 20-30 miles away, and it doesn't make sense for editors or travelers if we open the door to having these show up in airport and city articles. Similarly, in some places the draw of the town is primarily the airport (I'm thinking of Keflavik in particular), and in such cases a "list hotels in both articles" policy would definitely lead to unnecessary duplication. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would propose to geographically divide up listings of airport hotels in airport guides, so that, for example, in the O'Hare guide, the hotel listings could be subdivided O'Hare, Elk Grove Village, Schiller Park, etc., with a note in the "Sleep" sections of Elk Grove Village, et al., directing readers to, for example "O'Hare International Airport#Elk Grove Village." I hope my suggestion is clear; do you all understand what I'm suggesting? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have a useful compromise emerging. A couple questions linger, though: 1) Should there be a separate article for an airport like Keflavík International Airport, when the destination is more or less synonymous with the airport, and the guide can/will cover everything an airport guide would? 2) I understand why Ikan Kekek's suggestion (so that hotel guests are directed to the right guide to find out about restaurants and mini-attractions by the hotel they ultimately choose), but there is a disadvantage to losing the price categories. In the address field of each listing, the town name should be listed, so couldn't we just link that to the appropriate destination guide? --PeterTalk19:27, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's one possibility. The other one is to have price categories within each geographical subdivision of the airport article's "Sleep" section. If the overall "Sleep" section is relatively short, it won't matter much how it's subdivided, but if it's longer, I think my proposed solution may work better. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer Peter's suggestion, simply because price is more likely to be a deciding factor than which suburb surrounding the airport you stay in. PerryPlanet (talk) 01:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're probably right about that, and if the list gets too long, secondary subdivisions by location can be made, but I realize that it probably does make more sense to subdivide by price. There is a procedural issue, though: This will be one case in which the name of the town would have to be included in every listing, which is a deviation from usual procedure. If we group everything first of all by location, that deviation doesn't have to take place, but it's hardly a make-or-break issue. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(responding to Peter re: Keflavik) I think an airport article is primarily about the airport itself - flights, airport amenities, etc, while the town article is about the town, its restaurants, sights, activities, etc. In the case of a town like Keflavik, two articles seems to make sense - the town article lists restaurants, hotels, etc in the town, the airport article (if one was created) talks about flights and the airport property. With respect to hotels, I would think that hotels that aren't either on the Keflavik airport property or immediately outside of the airport property would stay in the town article.
Getting back to the point about where to draw the line, there are perhaps a dozen hotels within a half mile of LAX on Century Blvd that I would describe as clearly being airport hotels, and thus belonging in the LAX article rather than the El Segundo article, but I would think that anything further out than that is not obviously an "airport" hotel and would best be handled in the appropriate city article (with pointers from the airport article to those city articles). -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When I built the original O'Hare list, I think my rule of thumb was that hotels had to be within a mile of the airport. (That may not be useful at other airports, of course.) In terms of touts, they zero in on the Chicago article, not the individual suburb articles — they know those hold no value. (Look at the 'Sleep' section in the abandoned Chicago article on WT and you'll see what I mean.) I'd also suggest that the hotel listings remain sorted by price. From the perspective of a traveler who's taken a shuttle from the airport to their hotel, there's little to distinguish Schiller Park from Elk Grove Village, et al. I've stayed at O'Hare hotels 4 times, I think, without knowing which suburb I was in. Gorilla Jones (talk) 03:13, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What was ultimately decided on this topic? It seems to me, we ended up with only hotels that are actually within airports being listed in airport guides, and yet the consensus in this thread seemed to be leaning toward some clear distance (1 km/1/2 mile?) from an airport being appropriate to list in an airport guide. I'm OK with things remaining the way they are, but I have to wonder whether the lack of change was due to inertia and loss of initiative, rather than the lack of a consensus behind this change. Can we reopen this discussion, or is it best to let this slumbering dog lie? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:08, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Initially we agreed only hotel at the airport, however I think it should be extended to hotels that offer shuttle buses to and from the airport. Also allow duplication of these hotels in the city articles if one exists. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:56, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Like Powers says, the presence of a shuttle bus isn't really specific enough; there are cities with downtown hotels (that no one would consider "airport hotels") that offer shuttles to the airport. I still think the most useful definition of an airport hotel is the general one: a hotel that exists primarily to serve airport travelers. PerryPlanet (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Traveler100, if I'm reading the discussion above correctly, the consensus would have been not to allow duplication. I'd be happy with some wording like "Hotels that exist primarily to serve airport travelers that are located within the immediate vicinity of the airport may be included in either the airport article or a city article, but not both. When a city is home to hotels that are listed in an airport article then the "Sleep" section of the city article should include a pointer to the airport article." "Immediate vicinity" is obviously open to interpretation, but that should give us some leeway for cases like Antananarivo where the airport is 45 minutes outside of the city, and the closest "airport hotel" is several miles from the airport, vs. an airport like LAX where there are a dozen hotels located just outside of the airport, and thus it would be a stretch to describe a hotel located several miles away as an "airport hotel". -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I like that wording; it's specific enough to give a good sense of what we're looking for, but general enough to allow for leeway when needed. PerryPlanet (talk) 18:04, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So for example how should Frankfurt Airport be handled. I have deleted a couple of times the hotels that are in Frankfurt-Niederrad a couple of times from the airport page as they are in the city suburb not the airport and used not just by people going through the airport. But on the other hand the HI on the outskirts of Mörfelden really only there to serve the airport but is just as far away as hotels in Langen, [Kelsterbach] and Raunheim which also cater mainly for the airport but also serve people visiting companies in those towns.--Traveler100 (talk) 19:00, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with Frankfurt, but if you'd consider those communities far from the airport, then they probably wouldn't be considered within the immediate vicinity, per Ryan's wording. If there's a lot of much closer options to the airport, might as well stick to those and leave the more far-flung options to the individual town articles. PerryPlanet (talk) 21:02, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Revived discussion
[unindent] I've unarchived the above thread for further discussion, because the topic of whether or when to list accommodations outside of airports in airport articles just came up at Talk:Tokyo Haneda Airport. Did we ever fully resolve this question? Here's what's currently in Wikivoyage:Airport article template#Sleep:
Where can you sleep/nap/rest inside the airport, including on chairs and benches. How comfortable will you be, and will you get in trouble if you stretch out or stay too long.
Hotel options on or connected to the airport, and an overview of nearby neighborhoods offering hotel accommodation. If the airport is adjacent to a well-defined neighborhood and travellers can easily find hotels from that district article, link to it. However, airports are often not close to anything, and the airport article may be the best place to list a few hotels (ones whose defining feature is "being close to the airport").
So it sounds like that means hotels shouldn't be listed in airport articles unless they're either in the airport or the airport is so far from anyplace of note that there are hotels that are there only because they're close to the airport. To me that would mean that a hotel (or in this case, hostel) that could be listed in a Tokyo district guide probably shouldn't be in the Tokyo Haneda Airport article, if we take the language in Wikivoyage:Airport article template#Sleep literally. However, if you read through the unarchived discussion above, there seemed to be a consensus to list hotels perhaps a kilometer or two from airports in urban areas that exist solely to serve people who want to be near the airport (and maybe several km further from airports far outside of cities that have nothing much around them but do have airport articles), although I believe most of the participants in the above discussion wouldn't support also listing such hotels in any other article. So what do you think? JRHorse, feel free to participate if you like. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:23, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think the guideline is clear and should be kept. Hotels on the airport ground should be in the airport article. Hotels in a neighbourhood covered by a city or district article should be in that article and a link to that page in the airport sleep section with details how to get there. There a a few borderline ones, the hostel in Tokyo/Ota is not one of them, where there are hotels outside the airport grounds but not near anywhere else and clearly part of the airport infrastructure that can be in the airport article. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:29, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Take a look at Frankfurt Airport#Sleep, which I just updated. Te article section starts with text mentioning town articles in the area, some of which have hotels with airport shuttles. Then shows hotels in airport's ground. There are then a group of hotels in an area not in Fraport's grounds but in the built-up area around the airport and not connected directly to the city of Frankfort. Then there is a mention of hotel in Niederrad district of Frankfurt, as most of these are there because of the airport and have shuttles to it but are in the city limits proper. There is then a Nearby section mentioning cities a little further away that may be better places to stay if do not need to be right by the airport. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:54, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot for your participation and for the link, Traveler100. I still don't really find the guideline that clear, but I'm happy to defer to you on Frankfurt Airport#Sleep. There are problematic gray areas, though, in other cases. For example, my girlfriend and I once stayed overnight at an America's Best Value motel in El Segundo several years ago because we wanted to be close to LAX and avoid the likelihood of ending up in horrible traffic if we had spent another night in Santa Barbara and tried driving down from there all the way to the airport. It was close enough to the airport for us to smell the exhaust from the airplanes when we were standing outside and planes were taking off or landing, but El Segundo is also a real neighborhood, and by driving a short distance for L.A., we went to a marvelous Middle Eastern restaurant, though that was actually in Hawthorne (California). Since LAX is in L.A. and several neighborhoods are close to it but still require some form of ground transportation to get to, I wouldn't support adding any hotel listings to Los Angeles International Airport#Sleep unless there are hotels in the airport itself. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If the hotels also serve another place where people actually visit, the hotels can definitely be put in that article (but with a link from the airport article's sleep section). If a hotel on the other hand is on the airport or otherwise nearby and only there because of the airport, I'd definitely put it in the airport article itself where readers would be looking for it. I would rather not create articles for random bedroom suburbs or villages with nothing of travel interest just to have somewhere to put the hotels. Ypsilon (talk) 12:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, it's a judgment call. The link from the airport article's sleep section in cases you're discussing should be to the article for the neighborhood or town in question, not to specific hotel listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:48, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, from the airport's Sleep section to the Sleep sections of the articles for towns, districts etc. easily accessible from the airport Ypsilon (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My initial reaction is no. True, it is a hub for MAYAir and a focus city for 3 other airlines, but although I can't find stats on how many connecting passengers it has, I'm not sure it qualifies as a major hub airport compared to other hubs around the world.
Lately I've been leaning towards the "Wait/Eat/Drink" test. If an airport doesn't have much to say in those sections, that's probably because it's not a hub airport where travellers spend a lot of time connecting between flights. Cancun Airport only appears to have 24 restaurants (an average of only 6-8 per terminal, depending on how much is in T1), and most of those are fast food or grab-'n'-go stations. It does have at least 6 lounges. [1][2]
I dunno, it seems borderline. Cancun#By plane is a bit long, although if the list of airlines at each terminal could be removed (I'm not a fan of including that if it isn't necessary, since that info is usually readily available as you make your way to the airport) that would shrink it by half a screenful. The article for Mexico's busiest airport, like many of our airport articles, has a verbose description of flight and transportation options, but the Wait/Eat/Drink sections are almost empty. Cancun Airport has only half as many passengers (and nearly the same number of international passengers, which suggests that connecting domestic flights are not as numerous or significant) and less than half as many flights.
I think we may have gone overboard on creating some airport articles, at least while there are so few people contributing to them. The common logic is "keep it in the main article until it becomes unwieldy", and I think that's probably what should be done with Cancun for now. --Bigpeteb (talk) 20:58, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ngurah Rai International Airport
There's an awful lot of information about how to get where from this airport and for how much (which probably needs updating) in Bali#Get in. Based on the guidelines at WV:Region article template#Get in, I think that's incorrect. I also tend to think this airport has enough traffic in normal times to have its own article. In fact, the idea was broached in 2014; see Talk:Bali#Get in: By plane: The Airport. I'd much rather that the Kuta article refer readers to a new airport article for more information than to irregularly refer people to the article for the whole island for more specific information.
Sure, it's one of the main entry gateways to Indonesia. I remember as a kid, only the rich could afford to pay for nonstop flights from Singapore to Australia on Singapore Airlines or Qantas, and ordinary people headed to Australia would usually fly on Garuda and connect through their hub in Bali, which the route that most package tours took. I'm not sure whether or not it still functions in that role though. The dog2 (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather that someone who's actually used that airport relatively recently start the article, but if not, I'll move most of the content from the Bali article within a few days. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the amount of information currently in Bali#By plane is really all that excessive; it looks about normal for a popular tourist area. The whole point of airport articles is for major hubs and transit airports where a significant number of people catch connecting flights. Airport articles are not for places that holidaymakers will spend a couple of hours in waiting for their flight home. So if DPS is an example of the former, it should have its own article; but if it's an example of the latter, it probably shouldn't.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Things have probably changed since I was in primary school, when I connected through Bali to get to Australia from Singapore. These days, Singaporeans have in general become more affluent than back then, so I've always flown nonstop to travel between Singapore and Australia as an adult, since Qantas' fares are now very much within reach of the average middle class Singaporean unlike back then. But back in the 1990s, Bali was a major hub for passengers travelling between Southeast Asia and Australia. I've not been to Bali since I was in primary school, so I can't contribute more content, I'm afraid. The dog2 (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
ThunderingTyphoons!, I think that if there are listings that can be added for eateries and shops, there is plenty of material for an airport article, but what I think we ought not to do is leave the largest amount of information in a region guide and refer readers of the Kuta article, for example, to the region article for more information. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I guess my point is that just because an article can be written, doesn't mean it should be. I don't doubt that you could fill up a Ngurah Rai article with listings, but if it's not the sort of airport passengers spend much time in, then those listings don't need to be on Wikivoyage. Again, it depends on whether Bali sees much transit traffic or not.
The large mass of information you're concerned about on the Bali article is the mostly the stuff about getting to and from the airport from various places, right? That could (and probably should) be moved to the relevant city articles' Get in sections. Even if it were put in an airport article, it would still be a lot of irrelevant clutter, telling readers how to get to the place they want to go, and also how to get to a dozen other places they have no intention of visiting, at least not straight from the airport.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:42, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, but it comes back to whether the article needs to exist at all. If it does - because it's a transit hub - then incorporating ground transportation and as much eat, drink, and sleep info as possible is great. But if it's not a transit hub, then Denpasar#Get in can adequately handle how to get to Denpasar from DPS, Candidasa#Get in can cover how to get to Candidasa from DPS, etc...--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good question. I was hoping someone would know, or at least know where to look. (I've already checked the WP article, and unlike e.g. the LHR or CDG articles, the figures are not present)--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:20, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can most certainly connect in Bali to travel between Southeast Asia and Australia, and Garuda in fact used to leverage on that position to run a major hub in Bali. In fact, in the 1990s, if you booked a package tour to Australia from Singapore, it would almost always be on Garuda with a plane change in Bali unless you were willing to pay a steep premium to fly Qantas or Singapore Airlines. It does appear from the Wikipedia page that Garuda has scaled down their hub quite a bit since the 1990s; there's no longer flights to Brisbane from Bali for instance. But still, I could see someone from say, Beijing or Shanghai connecting through Bali on Garuda to get to Perth. The dog2 (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone, I recently visited Bali in 2019. Though I couldn't say much about the airport itself other than the scale of the airport getting bigger, almost entirely a hub, much like the biggest one in Tangerang, Soekarno-Hatta. There are still flights transiting in Bali for flight to/from Australia or New Zealand. There are some flights from Middle Eastern carriers but only once to twice a week. But domestic flights from Ngurah Rai are plenty, so if it's wise to create a separate page for it, I hope some Balinese wikivoyagers can add more information later. What do you think?ibhi19 (talk) 11:30, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Guidelines as to when an airport deserves an article
I was poking around to see if we had any hard numbers for when an airport should have an article, and unsurprised to see the conversation at the top of this page could be summarized as "even if we do, we shouldn't go by hard numbers". Still -- are there any reasonably solid guidelines we can use when we're trying to make a call for borderline cases? Adelaide#By plane looks...not imbalanced, to me, but I can both see room to expand it and that expanding it would make the section imbalanced, and I think I could write an article passing "the Wait/Drink/Eat test" described above -- if a short one. That said, it's a smaller city (the fifth largest in the country, but a country with a very bimodal population distribution) and the aiport isn't huge. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 10:59, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How much do you think you could add? If you're talking about a couple of listings in each section, that doesn't seem worthwhile because it'll be easy for anyone to see them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:03, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
With exceptions such as KEF (whose article was created during a period of sustained double digit growth) I think there is a de facto "line" somewhere around 20-30 million pax p.a. (pre-plague, obviously) above which airports are likely to get articles and below which they are unlikely to. But that is an emerging feature, not a deliberate one. And certainly there issues of the geographic bias of our editor-base and certain "fudge factors" that may or may not apply in each individual case. Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vaticidalprophet: Sorry for coming to this discussion late, but to answer your question, I have lived in Adelaide before, and Adelaide airport is fairly straightforward to get around, and only has a small number of international flights. It is indeed a domestic hub for Qantas, but Qantas does not operate any international flights out of it; the flight to Singapore got cancelled when they shifted the refuelling stop for their Sydney-London flights from Singapore to Dubai. So as of now, I will say Adelaide airport does not merit an article. The dog2 (talk) 15:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Recent discussion at Talk:Václav Havel Airport Prague seems to have reached a consensus that the article should be kept & I agree, but it does not appear to meet the criteria at Wikivoyage:Airport_Expedition#Article_criteria. In particular, I see no indication that it is much used for flight transfer. Wikipedia says 17 million passengers in 2018.
I think the criteria of connecting flights should not be the main one. When I see foreigners in Prague fumbling about how to buy a bus ticket or which bus to take, then I think the article makes sense. And there are several such issues in Prague. Packa (talk) 11:06, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Packa, what criteria do you think we should use for which airports should have separate articles on Wikivoyage, rather than just being covered in the "Get in" sections of the cities they primarily serve? I'd welcome your thoughts, as it's always good to get new perspectives. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:11, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I see it from the perspective of Wikipedia, where if an article Sulfur, for example, is already long, part of it moves to a new article Sulfuric acid, and that one is developing further. And when that one expands, again, maybe the Wet sulfuric acid process can be separated from it. I'll think about why it should be different in Wikivoyage and why not. Packa (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We do have somewhat of a similar attitude on this site, inasmuch as when information about an airport seems to be too long a section in an article, we separate it into a different article, but Wikipedia has articles or would have articles about every airport that ever existed. Most of those airports certainly wouldn't merit articles on this site. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:49, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just look at a handful of the edits this user has made to the Get In#By plane sections of several city articles. What are we to make of those? Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:32, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose they are good faith edits. The former format may have been better, but his arguments are not nonsense. Thanks for not edit warring. I suppose this is something that could be discussed at the airport expedition, with a link from here and from his user talk.
Implementing a batch of improvements in several articles is not too unusual at wikies, and it is sometimes hard to know what changes should be discussed first. These obviously should have been, when he realised he wants to change the format. Try to see what he has been doing and why, and try whether the improvements could be implemented without throwing out the child with the bathwater. Then tell why that is a better path than his version.
I like it (example). I assume that any decent flight website would provide similar information about nearby airports, but this contributor also sometimes specifies that there are intercity bus routes, which I wouldn't expect to find at a travel booking website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like his standard wording. If there are few flights to the airport or other options otherwise are the main ones, describe that situation before the list of alternatives. If the local airport gets decent traffic, then tell about the alternatives afterwards.
I also saw some cases where the Get in did not tell how to get in from those other airports, completing the vague "by rail, bus or ferry" in By plane. I think that when you suggest taking a plane to an alternative airport, you should check that the transport from there is described in some obvious place. Also, from an edit comment, I saw the list was ordered by how likely you are to find a good connection. That is not obvious for the reader, nor for other editors, who may change the order back to alphabetical.
Then there were some other structure changes, such as removing airport subheadings, that I found less than ideal, and sometimes the text wasn't coherent after the change.
I think Flightnavigator did his best, but these are things that develop by time, as editors tweak the structure and wordings, and finally end up with a good standard. Thus they should probably not be done in big scale at once, but rather in one or a few places, asking other contributors to take a look and make improvements. –LPfi (talk) 08:47, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we shouldn't bust Flightnavigators' chops, but up till now, the standard has been to mention the most important local airports first, then mention alternatives lower down. And that makes intuitive sense. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:59, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Having all the description of the main airport(s) first and then the alternative airports? For me it makes more sense to mention the alternatives before the long descriptions of the main airport(s). Because when you want to visit a city, you first have a look in which airports you can enter. And the you inform yourself about the airport details and how to go from there to the city itself. Flightnavigator (talk) 15:28, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see the merits of both approaches, but I agree with LPfi that we should lead with the primary way of getting in, and then deal with secondary ways after. That is more intuitive to me. Ground Zero (talk) 15:33, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Lisbon Airport
I believe that w:Lisbon Airport meets the criteria for having an airport article. It served 31 million passengers in 2019. It's a European hub to South America (especially Brazil) and Africa. It's a hub for TAP Air Portugal, Ryanair, and EasyJet. Does anybody have any opinions about creating an article for it? Nelson Ricardo (talk) 20:44, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find stats on that, but TAP Air Portugal is popular with travellers who don't mind connecting flights between North America and Europe to save a few bucks. I wouldn't call the airport "complicated", but it's not entirely straightforward. Terminal 1 is fairly large and amenity-full and susceptible to wrong turns (old gates vs newer concourse). Americans and other non-Europeans might get caught out by not expecting Schengen exit controls, whose lines are often long. Terminal 2 (low-cost carriers) is small and lacking in amenities, but requires an airport bus to reach (no parking, not walkable). Nelson Ricardo (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
TAP is an interesting option as they have transatlantic routes operated by narrowbody jets at often competitive prices. Unless you start/end your journey in Portugal, chances are you'll connect for those... Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:45, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised there's no article about this huge international airport which subjectively to me, at least, is about the same size as Frankfurt's. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Future targets
How much of this list really should get their own article? Here's the list:
These airports have been considered worthy of their own articles, but do not yet have an independent article. If you start an article for one of these articles, please move it to the 'works in progress' section above, merge it with any existing pages/redirects and add the infobox below to the new article's talk page. If you wish to add another article for creation through this expedition, please discuss it on this page's discussion area first.
Some comments: Jomo Kenyatta International Airport seemed to have upwards of 9 million passengers in 2019, per w:Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Should it get an article? That's not a huge number, but how complicated is the airport and would there be a lot of listings?
"In 2019, YYC Calgary International Airport was again the fourth-busiest airport in Canada in terms of the total number of passengers served, which was almost 18 million. This being another record year in passenger volume, surpassing the previous record set in 2018 by 3.54%," per w:Calgary International Airport, and also "serves as the headquarters for WestJet and is a hub for Air Canada," so looks like a good candidate if it's complicated enough and could have enough listings for amenities.
So far we only have one airport article for all of Africa, which is O.R. Tambo International Airport, which makes sense given that it is the busiest airport in all of Africa. I was just thinking of how we could expand our Africa coverage since admittedly, it is quite poor at the moment, and Cairo International Airport would probably be a good candidate for a second African airport article, given the large number of flights to Europe and the rest of North Africa. Ethiopia Airlines and Kenya Airways are Africa's two other major airlines after South African Airways, so I was just wondering if their hubs should get articles, since there's a good chance you would need to connect through Addis Ababa or Nairobi to get to other parts of Africa.
As for Calgary, I haven't been there so I can't comment on the complexity, but I find it hard to justify Calgary Airport getting its own article before Montreal. Montreal Airport is in the grey area where it could potentially get its own article, but it might also be fine to just cover it in the city article. I've only used to U.S. departures/arrivals facility at Montreal, but I will say that it's not particularly complicated to navigate, but it does get many flights from Europe, and a handful of flights from China and Japan, so it is certainly conceivable that a traveller from Asia would connect through Montreal to get to the Maritimes. The dog2 (talk) 14:37, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's been a while since I've had any occasion to be there, but I believe Charlotte's airport is pretty big, so there should be some scope for improvements. When I think of Africa, I think of Nigeria, the most populous country, but I think we found that their airports don't get all that much passenger traffic. I'd think about Lagos, though, in addition to Cairo. After that, I wonder whether there are big airports in other North African countries (Morocco, Algeria). But these are all thoughts off the top of my head. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Metropolitan airport, train and bus station articles
For a site dedicated to the traveler, it would be beneficial to have a less restictive policy on the inclusion of major transportation infrastructure (airports, train stations, bus station) serving metropolitan areas. A commercial airport that serves a metropolitan area and is the primary arrival point of arrival by air to that metropolitan area deserves an article but won't find them here. Articles exist on the largest of airports currently. But information on mid-sized airports is just as important and maybe even more important, given that information on them is less widely available. By including these, the site's value would be expanded in accordance with its mission. I just went through this, having created an article on Lehigh Valley International Airport, the primary commercial airport serving a metropolitan region of almost a million people and used by tens of thousands of travelers annually. That article appears headed for deletion, but it's a good example of an article that adds value and site visitors will seek. Transportation infrastructure--airports, train stations, bus stations, etc.--are the details travelers seek first. An airport, train station, or bus station that is the primary means for arriving in a metropolitan area warrants an article; right now, those articles exist only for the very largest of cities. A final point: In the absence of encouraging such articles, the detailed information that needs to be included on one or more city pages becomes overwhelming to the page and repetitive. I'd like to see this considered as a policy change, and I'm not proposing that it be changed excessively. Airports that are primarily used by private aircraft don't warrant articles. Airports serving areas that cannot be considered metropolitan regions don't deserve articles. But an airport, train station, or bus station serving a city of, say, more than 100,000 people warrants an article and would make this site of greater value to travelers who turn to this site for travel-related information. Keystone18 (talk) 20:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say no because we can easily cover the information for minor airports on a city page. And if there are nearby cities in the same metropolitan area, we can always link to the city article where we put the information about the airport. We have articles on major airports mainly because they can be complicated to navigate, and putting all the information about them into a city article could overwhelm the article. The dog2 (talk) 05:27, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say the case is stronger for airports primarily used for private aircraft. The information directed at a pilot needs to be detailed while useless for other travellers, so using a separate page makes sense – given there are enough enthusiasts among us to keep those articles more or less reliably up to date. I don't think that's the case at the moment. –LPfi (talk) 07:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to think that keeping all the essential information about an airport in the most logical place (the city or region the reader is visiting) is better for the traveller in most cases. A dedicated article for a smaller airport would probably attract irrelevant Wikipedia-style edits in an attempt to justify their existence as anything other than a stub. That would then clutter and hide the travel information.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:20, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ikan Kekek, The dog2, LPfi and TT. I think it would be better to improve the airport information in city articles, instead of splitting it out into separate articles. Ground Zero (talk) 10:23, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for starting a discussion here. My questions would be: About how many travelers go through each of these airports, how many transit within those airports, and about how many total listings (Eat, Drink, Buy, Sleep) would there be in each airport article? Other considerations are how many terminals they have and whether the configurations of the airports or ground transportation arrangements are highly complex and potentially confusing. I will say upfront that I can't imagine airports in any of these cities except for Honolulu being big, complex and sufficiently used for transit to merit their own "huge airport article" on this site, but perhaps I'm wrong (I doubt it, though). One test is whether the travel-related (not encyclopedic or historical) coverage of an airport risks overwhelming a city article. Is that true in any of these cases? One test would be, compare these airports to Lehigh Valley International Airport, which was merged and redirected to Allentown#Get in, or the fact that we are never likely to have a separate article for Bradley International Airport, which is covered thusly in the w:Bradley International Airport article: "The airport is about halfway between Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts. It is the state of Connecticut's busiest commercial airport and the second-busiest airport in New England after Boston's Logan International Airport, with over 6.75 million passengers in 2019." Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:43, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hobart Airport is certainly does not warrant an article; it does not serve international flights, although some people might connect through Hobart to get to the smaller towns in Tasmania, and it is very easy to navigate. Adelaide does serve a limited number of international flights to Asia, mainly so residents of South Australia can connect onward to Europe. However, there is only one terminal that is quite easy to navigate, and they just close off one section for international passengers who have cleared departure immigration whenever they are needed for international flights; at other times the international gates can be used for domestic flight. Far fewer people connect through Adelaide than through Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth, and for the most part, the only people who connect through Adelaide are people headed to or from the smaller towns in South Australia. Cairns does have separate terminals for domestic and international flights, but it's a small airport and not really used for connecting flights. People who want to get to outback Queensland usually connect through Brisbane. The dog2 (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly, Wellington Airport does not warrant its own article. Although it has a fair number of flights from various Australian cities, it's not really used as a connecting destination; that's what Auckland is for. Likewise, Queenstown and Christchurch also don't merit their own articles for the same reason The dog2 gave about why Cairns does not need its own airport. For Townsville and Sunshine Coast, – nope. Most people transfer from Brisbane for the former, and drive or take the train for the latter. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta)22:12, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
I'd like to add an article for Houston Intercontinental (IAH). The airport is huge with annual passenger traffic around 20 million. For the month of November 2022, the airport served approximately 33,000 flights (over 1,000 per day). Since the general yardstick used here to consider an airport "huge" is 100/day, Houston IAH is about 10 times the threshold number. More significantly though, from a traveler perspective, the airport is complex and can be hard to use with 5 terminals that aren't always easy to navigate between.
I see that some new editors have created articles for new airports without fully understanding our policy on airport articles. I am listing those that I have seen for review so we can determine whether or not these articles should be merged into the respective city articles. I have already redirected Adelaide Airport and Nadi International Airport to the respective city articles.
Charlotte Douglas is a huge airport and should have its own article. It serves over 20 million passengers per year, has more than 1,000 daily flights and is a bit more complex to use than it might seem at first. Yes, the airport has only 1 terminal building, but it's broken out into 5 concourses with a total of 115 gates, making it the country's biggest single terminal. CLT is American Airlines' second biggest hub. Mrkstvns (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's a substantial article, and from w:Venice Marco Polo Airport: "The airport handled 11,184,608 passengers in 2018, making it the fourth-busiest airport in Italy. The airport is named after Marco Polo and serves as a base for Volotea, Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet." I would have suggested probably not starting an article if a proposal had been made, since as you said, there is only one terminal, but I think we probably should not merge/redirect it, because there is a lot of content here (such as listings) that we presumably do not want to put all of this in a larger district article (unless it is itself a district). Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While looking for possible ideas to do outside of the airport during an extended layover, I noticed that we don't have any layover guides (think: "8-hour layover guide in London" or "what to do if you have 6 hours to spend in Copenhagen"). Sites like Tripadvisor have Q&A section while dedicated website has become out of date for years. All of our major city pages have in-depth listings, but most of the important listings are scattered across multiple district pages and do not do a good job to point out what are the "must-see's" for those who don't have a lot of time (e.g. Buckingham Palace and London Bridge for London; Little Mermaid Statute for Copenahgen). I'm envisioning to write something similar to this kind of layover guide. What's everyone's appetite for this type of pages in our project? OhanaUnitedTalk page03:44, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see two problems: on one hand these will nearly necessarily fall into the "Personal itinerary" category, on the other, I don't think we want people to do those "musts". What do you know about Copenhagen after having taken the taxi to the Little Mermaid? I think the time would have been better spent in a café in Strøget. For a more positive comment, see Helsinki itineraries, trying to do something like what you request. Yes, they are "personal itineraries", but I agree with you that such guides are useful, and they are allowed if they get reasonably complete and add something more than just listing sights. I think that in a big city, the selection of sights is necessarily arbitrary, and pointing out an easy-to-reach area with many sights and some of the essential atmosphere of the city (and telling about that area and its sights) could be more useful than pointing out the "musts" – which will be listed in the main city article's See (hopefully mentioning their locations and linked to the listings). As for the arbitrariness, telling whom you have in mind when choosing those sights is useful ("The A would probably want to use there time in B, which will easily keep them occupied for the C–D hours available."). –LPfi (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One thing to do for airports is to tell what districts of a city are directly reachable by the main transport options of the airport: If there is a rail line, in what districts are the stations? If you need to take a taxi, what interesting districts are nearby? The district is often too coarse a division for everything of it to be in easy reach, but the district has a map where hopefully the train station and the sights are marked, so you can zoom in on the station neighbourhood and check the sights in the See section (open in another window). –LPfi (talk) 06:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To make See entries more useful for this purpose, they should include information on how much time you would like to spend there (there was a discussion on good ways to do it when somebody suggested an hours figure – a free-text characterisation wins hands down) and whether there are issues such as queues or the building being too large for easily finding anything. "The museum is small and nice. Most would do it in less than half an hour, while it could keep geeks occupied for a few hours.", "The houses are scattered around, so you will use most of your time walking between them, hopefully enjoying the weather and the gardens. Any individual building is small, but there are 32 of them in all, giving a good insight in the housing and crafts of the time." –LPfi (talk) 06:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that layover guides could be useful and that airports should provide something about which distracts are directly reachable. Personally though, if it comes down to just figuring out how best to make it from the airport to the top attractions, and describing how long someone should spend at each stop, I don't see myself contributing or reading much of it; it's just not my style of travel. The top few "musts" are probably either completely obvious or completely subjective, and I wouldn't feel like I was getting too much value out of figuring out how to do them quickly from the airport.
I think it could be interesting to combine the idea of a layover guide with descriptions of what is directly reachable from the airport, if it did so with a bit of collective creativity, to highlight a part of the city that is, (borrowing some of @LPfi's terms) 1. easy-to-reach 2. with essential atmosphere 3. offering a (dense) mix of eat and see listings in the linked district. Instead of a personal itinerary, it could describe the "how" and the "why" (from a layover perspective), then point to the "what" in our district articles. It gets creative because we'd need to settle on what truly makes for a good well-rounded layover, and it adds value for the typical layover-traveler (hungry, rushed, wants a couple good photos, etc) even if they might miss out on the Eiffel Tower or Colosseum.
For example... in London, I think Big Ben and the Tower of London would be on most people's "must" list. But from a Heathrow layover, it could be a better overall experience to take the Elizabeth Line to Bond Street, eat anything from a sandwich to a splurge meal, then see Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, or some of the British Museum. In any other article I wouldn't advise walking 20 minutes to see 40 minutes of the Museum, but it's a lively walk that gives you a feel for the city, and the museum is free, so no pressure to stay too long. If anyone wants to venture further, it's obvious from the district articles that they've got options, but this gives them a non-obvious slice of the city that will at least meet their needs for a few hours.
I like this idea of having a beefed-up "nearby" section in airport (and train station) articles. I don't think it should be large, but maybe one or two "must-see" items, plus one or two neighborhoods that offer a variety of attractions. In choosing items, I'd put a little extra emphasis on what can be reached on a direct transit line, and on things that could be done/seen at different times of day. Hopefully the recommended neighborhoods would contain at least one hotel listing, in case the layover is due to severe weather or missed flights.
Since layovers come to an end, I think it'd also be worth mentioning anything about time constraints for the return trip (e.g., how long it takes to get back through security, that the trains stop running at midnight, etc.). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Basically I think this is a good idea, probably many travelers would be happy to see a new city if they have several hours at the airport. We could start with expanding the Nearby sections of existing airport articles and if the section for some airport gets really long we could make a separate artilcle. Rather than one set itinerary it's better to separate different attractions/destinations and suggestions for combining them if possible. Here it's important to tell readers how long it would take to enter the country, get to the attractions and back and through security and other controls to catch their plane, preferable with an extra hour for long lines, if you miss that bus, traffic jams... Also if some attraction is more difficult to get to and from than it looks on the map, dangerous etc. we need to say so. --Ypsilon (talk) 17:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:AlasdairW/One day in Hong Kong is a one day itinerary of Hong Kong, which was going to be deleted 9 years ago as it was regarded as a personal itinerary. I haven't followed this itinerary when I have had 24 hour stops in Hong Kong, but have usually gone for a long scenic walk, such as up the Peak. AlasdairW (talk) 23:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad you saved that! I remember it was a usable itinerary that was deleted during the overzealous rush to delete "personal" itineraries. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I intentionally called it "layover" guide (under 24 hours) and not a "stopover" guide (over 24 hours), precisely because you have much more options for food and attractions if you stay for a day or longer in a city. It also gets around the subjectiveness of personal itinerary because it caps out at 24 hours max (no "two weeks in Sydney" vs. "a month in Sydney"). Helsinki itineraries is great, but as WhatamIdoing said, it doesn't tell us the minimum time required and how to get from the airport to the city centre directly. While the airport's "nearby section" seem like a good place to insert, I don't know how discoverable for these airport pages would be in search engines and travellers' expectation to find layover guides at the bottom of airport pages. AlasdairW's one day itinerary of Hong Kong is something that is pretty clean and concise. Perhaps the structure of a layover guide can be a mosaic of AlasdairW's Hong Kong itinerary and the Helsinki itinerary? OhanaUnitedTalk page05:10, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both are indeed good examples. If we look at only the one-day section of the Helsinki itinerary (Helsinki_itineraries#A_full_day_in_Helsinki), I'd say it looks close to the Hong Kong itinerary in terms of structure, and either would help plan a short layover.
But if we only end up adding airport advice as bookends to an itinerary that is written to be time-limited, I'd worry about about running up against a few policies:
I think our challenge (with either the airport-nearby or separate itinerary approach) is to:
(1) provide a specific route that does more than provide a sightseeing schedule
(2) avoid "pointless" duplication
(3) provide airport get in/get out information
(4) provide objective advice about what can be done in a specific, short timeframe.
Some of these objectives can easily conflict if we're not careful. How should we "structure the structure" to do all this? Maybe we need a prototype... Gregsmi11 (talk) 11:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We once had A week near Hong Kong, originally mostly by me & pretty much a personal itinerary. It got renamed and greatly expanded by many people, becoming Pearl River Delta. I think in many cases, a layover guide might consider nearby places or even a whole region, not just the city. From Heathrow, for example, Oxford, Stonehenge or Reading are reasonably close. Pashley (talk) 06:18, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could a useful article be written on which airports are good to route through or to land at?
Heathrow, Changi and both airports in Shanghai or Seoul are on metro lines. Gatwick or Schipol have trains that are fast, comfortable & frequent. Xiamen Airport is close to downtown; taxi is fast & cheap. From some airports, though, getting into the city is difficult.
Changing airports in a city may be a hassle (see Wikivoyage:Tourist_office#New_York_airport_transfers for NYC), or it may be quite easy -- the two Seoul airports are on the same metro line & close -- or anywhere in between.
Some countries allow sterile transit; e.g. if you are just changing between two international flights at the same airport in Korea, then you do not have to go through Korean customs or immigration. Others do not allow this; e.g. the US insists you go through border formalities (& pay for a visa if you need one) even if your plane is just stopping for fuel.
I think that a global table would be difficult to keep up to date, but I would welcome adding this information to airport articles. This could include having an International transfer sub-section to say whether sterile transit is available, and any other points of interest for transit passengers. Ground transportation could have a sub-section on getting to/from other nearby airports (not necessarily just those with the same city in their name). AlasdairW (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Article criteria 2023
This is (almost) second half of 2023 and it seems that Article criteria could use some updating...many small airports are hard to get to for non-locals, as well as have limited support and fall out of standard expectations. So instead of discriminating them, they should be covered based on need of people (often not Frequent Flyers) using them. Quite a few in Europe share same history of being ex-military and now primarily RyanAir low-cost airports, so one can also say they have a different 'norm' and lack of standard topology.
REMARK:Aside from this I think putting any cap via criteria on people starting airport pages is anti-inclusive and artificial limitation, but if EN wants to stick with it, that is also OK, just do not be too surprised if non-native speakers and people outside of anglo-saxon cultural circle start repeating EN Wikipedia complains about how contributing is sub-optimal. --15:31, 20 May 2023 (UTC) Zblace (talk) 15:31, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please ignore my previous inputs...I have almost zero interest to update EN Wy norms. Saving energy for where it is needed more. -- Zblace (talk) 12:25, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think a main thing is whether the airport description would overload the city article. Of course there should be advice on getting to and from the airport, but small airports often have just one bus line and the taxi stand. If transport isn't complicated, then it fits nicely in the By plane in the city article, and if there aren't many amenities at the airport, that's just about it. Can you give examples of airports that are difficult to "get out of and stay on in case you fail to connect flights". You mentioned Frankfurt-Hahn in User talk:Zblace#Airport articles; what would you add to it (except just updating)? Can you give examples where the info overloads the city article, where a usable airport article has been redirected or where essential information has been removed? Or an it/de article that you think we should translate? –LPfi (talk) 21:01, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The airports which we have articles on have a large selection of facilities inside the terminal buildings, often as many restaurants and shops as a town with a population of 25,000. Frankfurt-Hahn only has two shops. Low-cost airlines generally don't sell though tickets with connections, so there are few transferring passengers in these airports (who want information on the airport but not the city). AlasdairW (talk) 11:53, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Cebu airport
Mactan-Cebu International Airport is currently a redirect to description in a city article, but should it get its own article? When I was last there (2018 or so) it was not very large or complex, but since then they've added a second terminal so it may be now.
The article gives flights per day info for 2018, 70 international & 200 domestic. Wikidata gives passenger/year numbers rising by about a million a year for several years, peaking at 12.7 million in 2019, lower since. Pashley (talk) 23:27, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done dynamic map removed