Talk:Flying to Africa

Where from?

And where did this come from? PrinceGloria (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Apparently this continent is not only stricken by constant poverty, disease and flies in everybody's eyes from Cape Town to Cairo, but it is also next to impossible to reach even by air from other continents... And as this is the Internet, I should mention that this contribution is a tad ironic ;-) Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

This came from Africa on 29th June last year :)

I didn't believe the content was useful for understanding Africa (most of it is detailed lists of which international airports fly to which African airports.. many of which are probably no longer valid)

I didn't want to delete wholesale, so I made a travel topic out of it. You can VFD if you like. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:51, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It just needs pruning and it will end up being of perrfectly digestible size for the main article. I will get down to it by due course. I am starting to think we should impose some daily character limits on users - if you add a number of characters somewhere in the mainspace, you have to reduce the text by the same amount elsewhere. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I would love that and it would help real travelers immeasurably (i.e. you could quickly understand your destination with targeted high quality content, rather than wade through paragraphs of personal opinions and incidental 'facts'). Unfortunately it probably wouldn't fly with the Wikimedia foundation mission etc... Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:49, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually I don't need to do this - Africa#Get in has it already done. Can we just agree to roll back the split and simply leave the section there as it is, without a separate article? PrinceGloria (talk) 04:50, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

New page banner

Suggested banner for Flying to Africa.

Made a new page banner. What do you think? /Yvwv (talk) 23:33, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

It shows a rather obsolete plane (the A340) from an airline that is close to going out of business every couple of months even in "good" times... I'm not sure that's the message we want to send. And even if people don't recognize the A340 on sight, there are no newer single-deck four engine passenger jets. The other four engine passenger jets still in limited production (the A380 and the Boeing 747) have very distinctly recognizable upper decks... Hobbitschuster (talk) 09:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"With once colonizing South Africa"`

I don't understand what this means, but it doesn't make sense to me and will need to be edited:

"KLM flies to major cities in Africa, with once colonizing South Africa"

Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm guessing the point is that KLM is the Dutch flag carrier, and South Africa was once a Dutch colony. I'll try to edit it to clarify. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:16, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Sinai

Sharm-el-Sheikh, being on the Sinai, is actually not in Africa. Should we include information about who flies there, anyway, just because it's part of Egypt? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I would as it is Egyptian territory and most people think it is in Africa. AdamT777 (talk) 12:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Getting to the Sinai can be a stepping stone for getting to "Africa proper" just like western Istanbul can be for Asia.

At any rate we should mention somewhere the curious case of Air Sinai who fly unmarked planes that are extremely hard to book but which fulfill a condition of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty in that they offer direct air service between Cairo and TLV Hobbitschuster (talk) 08:24, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

That should probably be mentioned in the articles about Israel and Egypt. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

And in the article on Ben Gurion Airport Hobbitschuster (talk) 09:40, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The Canary Islands and Madeira, part of Spain and Portugal respectively, is actually a part of Africa. Should we still have info on how to get to these places? I feel like most people tend to forget it's part of Africa? AdamT777 (talk) 00:00, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Probably not. Wouldn't a flight from Madrid to the Canary Islands be considered a domestic flight, just as a 5-hour flight from LAX to Honolulu would? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:55, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose a section about flying within Africa. The major airlines, the major airports, etc. AdamT777 (talk) 12:10, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This article is already a decent length and pretty detailed. I think Flying within Africa should be another article. What do others think? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:04, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Why not Flying in Africa? Hobbitschuster (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi guys, as Africa gets the most flights from Europe than any other continent. I'm thinking of making a budget and leisure airline section, like TUI, Norweigan, easyJet, Ryanair, much more. AdamT777 (talk) 23:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Go for it, but I have to say, thanks for all the effort you've put into this, but we'll need you to regularly maintain it for an indefinite period of time if we're expecting people to rely on Wikivoyage for long lists of airlines and routes. If you read the first thread on this page, you'll get a sense of how skeptical we've generally been about such repositories, figuring that Wikipedia, with its much larger corps of editors, commercial flight listing sites and airport websites are likely to be much more reliable, much more regularly updated, and much more widely consulted. In short, this kind of article is really out of keeping with Wikivoyage style, as we've understood it so far, so it merits a discussion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Middle East

If we're going to have a separate primary heading for only the Asian part of a region, which other regions should be treated the same way? I actually don't agree with "Middle East" getting treated like a continent and would suggest subordinating the listing as a secondary subheading under "Asia". Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I put that there because many airlines in the Middle East operate to/from Africa because there are tons of Muslims in Northern Africa. Also, a majority of the flights from Asia to Africa originate in the Middle East. AdamT777 (talk) 3:20, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok, but it's still not a continent and should be subordinated to Asia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll take care of this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for upgrade

Hello all, I propose to upgrade this article into a usable article because I have a lot of editing on this page. Please write what you think down below. AdamT777 (talk) 4:43 (UTC), 24 July 2020.

If you think it's Usable, just upgrade it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:29, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

up to date?

Does anybody keep this article up to date? Routes get started and terminated frequently.

By flying over the article just 1 min I saw a lot of outdated and missing routes. Does outdated content really help travelers?

I recommend linking Flightconnections.com, so everybody has an up to date view regarding airlines, airports and routes. 80.187.74.146 07:05, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

We shouldn't outsource information. If we can't keep this article updated, we should delete it. But since you noticed it was outdated, why didn't you update it? "Anyone" on a wiki is you! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

The article generally could be updated by using flightconnections.com. The thing is, flightconnections shows the connections in a better and faster way than this article. So I don't see a reason to update this article by myself because the pieces of information change often and can be obtained better elsewhere where they are kept up-to-date automatically. I see Wikivoyage as a source for information that does not change often. Information that changes often should be outsourced.

According to topviewanalysis this article is clicked 7 times per day on average. Not very popular. The country calling codes have over 300 page impressions per day. 80.187.73.210 23:40, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Another thing is that this article does not show 1-stop connections, which can have more suitable flying times, serve a certain departure day, or have a way better fare than non-stop flights. So in the end a flight price comparison website like Google Flights, kiwi.com and Skyscanner is the best way to go. And additionally using flightconnections.com to find airports that lie near the origin airport and the arrival airport for finding the best suitable flight. 80.187.73.210 23:50, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Please read what not to link to. As I said, the other alternative is to delete the article. Do you support deletion? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:07, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion incorrect/outdated data harms Wikivoyage's reputation because of less reliability and credibility. The routes put in sentences one after another have a bad readability. The content of the article is sorted by airlines. Would be more helpful if it were sorted by origin or destination. To see where in Africa one can fly to from an airport nearby. Or from which airports nearby one can reach a specific African airport.

So from my side it's a yes.

An alternative would be an infobox at the top of the article that the data is only updated infrequently and should be taken with caution. 80.187.73.210 01:15, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit torn here. Delete or rewrite?

On the one hand there are good arguments for deletion since it violates policies like Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists and not yellow pages, I think sometimes Wikivoyage:No advice from Captain Obvious. From a practical point of view such lists are unmaintainable; this is far from the only case, see for example this article rated star but suffering from link rot: Talk:Retiring_abroad#Needs_review.

On the other hand, it is a valid travel topic & our coverage of Africa is generally weak & needs all the help it can get. It is worth saving if someone wants to do the work. Volunteers? Pashley (talk) 02:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

There is some info that won't get obsoleted in the near future, such as the fact that former colonial powers' capitals are a good first guess at relevant airports. On the other hand, Flightconnections should rather be mentioned in Planning your flight or Aggregators. I cannot judge how fast the specific connections go out of date or how difficult it is to keep them updated, but obviously somebody should engage in that task if we want to have those lists. Perhaps some of the connections are more stable than others (one should probably leave out specific budget airline connections). –LPfi (talk) 08:59, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with LPfi. I'm not interested in updating long lists of airline destinations, and I don't think anyone else is. Any of the airline ticket websites will do a better job if this than Wikivoyage. Let's remove all the references to airlines, and see what the article looks like with the general and airport information left. If it is no longer a useful article, we can discuss deleting it then. If it is still useful, we keep it. Ground Zero (talk) 09:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Like this: User:Ground Zero/Flying to Africa (work in progress). Ground Zero (talk) 10:09, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ [outdent] My problem with this article is the same issue I have with Ancient African nations and African national parks – it is vague, overgeneralised and somewhat ethnocentric. If I'm looking for how to fly to Namibia, I would look at Namibia#By plane and possibly South Africa#By plane, and a site that handles up-to-date flight information (so not Wikivoyage) but never this article. I can't imagine anyone else finding this article useful either. It does mean, however, that more work will be needed to keep this article updated for limited benefit. I would support this article being listed on WV:VFD or being merged with Africa#By plane. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 09:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

A lot of people, used to Mercator's projection maps, don't realize that Africa is far, far bigger than any other continent but Asia. I think Asia#By plane, with the addition of the information in the intro of User:Ground Zero/Flying to Africa, is a better starting point for an edited version of Africa#By plane, to which this article could be redirected, than the list of popular routes currently in that section, unless there's a realistic possibility of changing the structure of Africa#By plane to resemble South America#By plane (but again, it's a much vaster continent than South America). Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Indeed – South America only has 12 countries; Africa has 54. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I was asked to put my opinion here. To be clear, the fact I created this page doesn't confer any sort of ownership or authority to it, and I have actually completely forgot why I created it (the history show it was just a skeleton article anyway). But.. my opinion is that it is a disaster, with laundry lists of inaccurate flight routes that no sane person would ever try and use as a reference. WV should not be showing flight connections like this. Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:48, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Andrewssi2, do you support a merge/redirect to Africa#By plane. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Support Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)