Talk:Thessaloniki Airport

Austrian flights operated by Lauda
An unregistered user keeps deleting the seasonal scheduled, weekly operated flights operated by Lauda Air for Austrian Airlines without citing a reason. Could someone please help me with what should happen next? The flights appear on Lauda's timetable which I have cited in previous revisions of the article, like here for example and are additional to the daily seasonal flights operated by Austrian for Austrian. User:Thakaran 13:2, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 3 April 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Pretty clear consensus the current title is the common name.  Calidum   03:14, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Thessaloniki Airport → Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia – Per WP:officialname in it's logo and common practice across all of Wikipedia to include the full name & title. See List of international airports by country: e.g. Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (not Belgrade Airport), Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport (not Ohrid Airport). Notice Skopje Alexander the Great Airport dropped the name Alexander the Great because of the Prespa Agreement but that agreement does not require such renaming of the Makedonia airport. Lately, the page was previously moved with no discussion on a single user's good faith request but to an amibiguous (this is not the only Thessaloniki airport) and non-official name on dubious WP:OR usage of WP:commonname. Namely if you cut words from any official title you are going to have more Google results on the needless cost of precision, unless we should call it just "Greek Airport" which has the most google results (e.g. "Airport" would have most google results naturally). An older move discussion with many users participation was opposed to drop "International" from airport titles in Greece for the same reason. I propose the short official non-ambiguous title Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia, but we could also include the word 'International' as well Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:02, 3 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Support as per rationale. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:02, 3 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment 1  sorry but what exactly do you mean "this is not the only Thessaloniki airport" and that the current title is confusing? Who has ever referred to Sedes airport as "Thessaloniki Airport Sedes"? Additions to an airport name are only necessary if there is confusion by use of the simple name, and in Thessaloniki there is but a single commercial airport. Please provide some evidence for your assertion that the present article title is confusing, because I personally have never seen anyone refer to Thessaloniki airport as "Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia" as the common name in mainstream English sources. --Michail (blah) 17:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record I didn't say what you are responding to. Tell me why not call it Greece Airport if Thessaloniki Airport is not ambiguous even though you accept that there is at least one other airport located at the same area in Thessaloniki? Also in the database, there are another two listed in the Thessaloniki prefecture, one of them actually is closer to the Thessaloniki city center than either Makedonia or Sedes. Genuinely curious, tell me what was your motivation to move this article but not Ohrid Airport or Belgrade Airport? Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 07:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * What you should be asking is why did you have to refer to Sedes airport using it's name rather than Thessaloniki airbase or something for the military one, but wan't to refrain from the simple natural thing to use the name of the airport for the commercial one. And why you yourself had to use the disambiguator commercial airport for the one we are talking about, all these evidence that we should include the official name in the title. Are you saying you will not have a problem if there was actually another commercial airport in Thessaloniki and Makedonia airport is not the single one? Because there is. AG6358 used for charter flights to Thessaloniki. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 08:04, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Sedes is not an airport. It's an air base. Kolhiko isn't even an air base, it's an airfield. I would point you to this map by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority which pinpoints exactly why Thessaloniki Airport is completely unambiguous a title. It is . --Michail (blah) 10:53, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "Sedes is not an airport" - but you refered to "Sedes airport" at the start of this thread. Using names: Sedes, Kolhiko and Micra to be unambigous is more natural than those terms. Micra Airport just happens now to be named Makedonia airport. You provide a link to the Greek Civil Aviation authority which would list only civil airports, this map of all airports in Thessaloniki lists 3+1, calling Sedes an Airport (Kolhiko airfield is under location Greece,Greece - an error - so doesn't appear in the search query I link). That site is using Thessaloniki Macedonia Airport name even though it is not a Greek site but an international, supporting my argument. Besides your source also uses the official name too, but it's Greek so it doesn't count?
 * The fact that the Athenian Prime minister of Greece gets them mixed up is not supportive to the notion that there is only one airport. The previous report is why I came here to find out the title in the wiki was moved from the proper name at some point, since you wonder where I'm coming from. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:16, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment 2  I also do not appreciate your accusation that it was moved without discussion. A request to move was put in, no one replied, and it was moved. --Michail (blah) 17:18, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment 3 your edit history, centred almost exclusively on Greek Macedonia-related articles, to me also points to a POV-motivated move request, as opposed to one based on Wikipedia policies, exemplified by your comment that Notice Skopje Alexander the Great Airport dropped the name Alexander the Great because of the Prespa Agreement but that agreement does not require such renaming of the Makedonia airport. This is a completely irrelevant argument in the context of this request. The English Wikipedia uses the most common English names for its articles, it does not care what the Greek public most commonly uses. --Michail (blah) 17:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. Wow, such hate. Besides your instant violation of WP:AGF at the mere suggesion of using the official name of the airport, I didn't accuse you at all, I just mentioned the fact that nobody discussed it at the time it was moved, so there was no consensus. There were previous discussions that seemed to have other results. Other than that, you fail to respond at the resonable points I made in the rationale for the move and resort to ad hominem attack and a strawman, responding to claims I never made. Carry on. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 07:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Not hate, just an observation. We seem to have different ideas of what a reasonable point is, because one of your core arguments is that keeping the article at Thessaloniki Airport and calling it Greece Airport is exactly the same of precision and ambiguity. There are 35 civilian airports in Greece, and 1 civilian airport in Thessaloniki. This to me is not indicative of a reasoned and reasonable rationale. --Michail (blah) 10:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Ok, I guess you came out as rather aggressive but we just disagree. Please don't misrepresent me with a strawman again, I never said that "Thessaloniki Airport and calling it Greece Airport is exactly the same of precision and ambiguity.". Maybe my English usage is to blame if I'm not well understood but I said "Namely if you cut words from any official title you are going to have more Google results on the needless cost of precision". To clarify my point, I say that it's a wrong line of argumentation to say that "Thessaloniki International Airport Makedonia" -> "Thessaloniki International Airport" -> "Thessaloniki Airport" tells anything about common usage. It's a natural progression to more Google results and the next in that line is the single word "Airport".
 * Now full disclosure, I was here at the time of the Arbcom Macedonia related WP:ARBMAC2 so I'm not impartial. I have been labeled an SPA which is fine by me, the wiki is written by SPAs, I have written the article Macedonians (Greeks) basically from scratch, so I don't feel any less a contributor. I have been called a Greek, a nationalist etc and self proclaimed "we are all Greeks" and as a Macedonian Greek so whatever you call me will fly past me because I don't care anymore.
 * However, where are you coming from? In the discussion of 2012 you participated under the name Philly Boy and other users opinion prevailed over you, but during the move your were alone because there wasn't anybody around to contenst the move. You seem to have a vested interest in this article (just like me) judging by the volume of words we both wrote on this insignificant detail over the name of an airport in Wikipedia. Why aren't you on board with using the same format as Ohrid Airport and be done with it? You say you are interested in maintaining wikipedia's sacred policy and would wikilawyer that to the bitter end, to what gain. I say this is a facade because if that was your interest you would have renamed other articles too. I am here because I am a Macedonia focused SPA account. Why are you? Anyway this is all irrelevant, I don't care if you are Greek or whatever else so I will enclose this whole discussion (that you started with "Comment 2") if you don't mind to not clutter this RFC. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:32, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * 2012 was 7 years ago. As it happens it is my birthday today, and at 27 I am a different person than I was at 20. I am entirely on board with applying the same rule to Ohrid and Belgrade, but I simply have no interest in participating in those articles. I do, however, participate in this one, which is why I am involved in this discussion. "But why aren't you enforcing this rule on other articles you are not involved in?" is not a valid argument. If I was involved in those articles, I would be saying the same thing. But I am not involved in them. --Michail (blah) 14:11, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Support as suggested. The title of this entry should have the proper name of the airport. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ian 1975 (talk • contribs) 08:11, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. A Google search for "Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia" gives 576k results . A search for Thessaloniki Airport gives 7.7 million results . "Thessaloniki Airport" is by far the most common name in English. WP:OFFICIALNAME states: In many cases, the official name will be the best choice to fit these criteria. However, in many other cases, it will not be. [...] The article title policy later reads Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title. WP:OFFICIALNAME is not a valid rationale for moving it. The current page satisfies WP:OFFICIALNAME by including the official name in the lead. --Michail (blah) 17:08, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Should the article title be "Thessaloniki Airport" (most common name 7.7 million google hits) or the official name "Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia" (576k hits, 7% of total hits)? Should WP:COMMONNAME or WP:OFFICIALNAME be the prevailing Wikipedia policy for the title of this article? Michail (blah) 17:36, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * By your reasoning we should name it Macedonia Airport with 45.8 mil results:. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:44, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Macedonia Airport also includes links to Macedonian airports in the first google search page. It's the definition of unambiguous. Same goes for the ridiculous argument that we should call it "Greece Airport". --Michail (blah) 10:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * A gentle reminder: though you make a good case for the present title being the airport's common name, and while WP:COMMONNAME is definitely an important part of Wikipedia's article title policy, WP:OFFICIALNAME is neither a policy nor a guideline. It is a "supplement" to the policy and is not to be used when the policy itself (WP:COMMONNAME) takes precedence. So to answer your question, WP:COMMONNAME prevails.  Paine Ellsworth , ed. put'r there  21:30, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:Precision is part of the naming policy though. I argue that even though Thessaloniki Airport is WP:concise, it is not precise enough. Also does common practice across the wiki count for nothing? As I mentioned in the rationale, check out List of international airports by country. If someone was to scoop all that and moving them to the common name, deleting the given airport titles from the article titles, that would be ok becuase it is an application of a guideline? I don't think so. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 08:35, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * There is only one civilian airport in Thessaloniki, and the current article title satisfies WP:PRECISION. Please provide us with some evidence of how the current title is ambiguous. --Michail (blah) 10:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Ngrams would agree with the noted search results: the present title is the COMMONNAME of this airport and should continue to be used.  Paine Ellsworth , ed. put'r there  21:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: Thanks for the input. I must however point out that this is WP:OR (edit:insufficient and a wrong use of COMMONNAME. Let me explain my point:). Furthermore, I don't see how your Google argument invalidates anything I suggested based on the reasons I provided. For instance you could argue that New York Airport has more results than New York Laguardia Airport or maybe we should just title the article just "Airport" for the most Google results possible? For things like airports ships and buildings that are named it is rather unreasonable to omit their names from the article title because the ambiguous terms that are left out will have more results. I ask you, what is the gain, why shouldn't we use the name of the Airport as it is done in hundreds of other Airport articles? At the very least the title should be Thessaloniki International Airport as other suggested in past discussions. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 07:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Paine Ellsworth, just one more example to see why the tool you used is wrongly applied: Genoa Airport vs Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport. 10 mil results vs 1 mil. And this is what Ngrams says:. Do we agree that it is obvious that Genoa Airport is not the common name of that airport even though that exact same argumentation could be used to that erronious effect? Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:12, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Just because most airport articles break the rule on how articles should be titled it doesn't mean that all articles have to follow that paradigm. Wikipedia has rules, and WP:COMMONNAME is one of them. --Michail (blah) 10:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Disagree that the ngrams tool is wrongly applied. Ngrams tool by itself is inadequate; however, when used with other tools, ngrams can support or oppose conclusions. In this case, ngrams supports Google results.  Paine Ellsworth , ed. put'r there  15:15, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Macedonia Airport as an alternative proposal based on the rationale by other participants. With 45.8 mil google results: that is 5 times as many as Thessaloniki Airport results. The proper anglicised term for the name is Macedonia (not the Greeklish Makedonia which redirects to Macedonia). This title is both official, shorter and satisfies WP:COMMONNAME if that policy has to prevail. There is only one airport called Macedonia airport, as we see in the Google results page, Thessaloniki Macedonia Airport dominates the first results page. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 09:44, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This is the common name for the airport. In the first page of the search for "Macedonia Airport" you already get links for airports in North Macedonia. The article name needs to avoid ambiguity. Thessaloniki Airport is completely unambiguous. Your argument that moving it to Greece Airport would be the same is completely ridiculous and I am not even going to address it. Additionally, including the various names in quotation marks (so that the results only show articles where  is used) gives: 20k for "Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia", 48k for "Macedonia Airport" (including links to Skopje airport), and 398k results for "Thessaloniki Airport". --Michail (blah) 10:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * In the first page of the results of searching thessaloniki airport includes results such as companies called "Thessaloniki Airport Parking" and "Thessaloniki Airport & Mall Apartment". Let's say that 100% of the 7 milion results you cited (searching without brackets) as overwhelming evidence for a common name are about the airport (evidently false but let's stick with it). And let's cut a generous 50% of the 45 milion results for Macedonia airport because you find a few results about the Skopje Airport even though nobody calls it "Macedonia airport" and since the country renamed to North Macedonia definately wouldn't be called that in the future. Still leaves about 23 million results which is 3 times more that the 7 million for Thessaloniki Airport.
 * Ok the bracketed searches would seem better but you made some errors in using the numbers (which already paint a rather more mild picture than the you began with by searching without brackets). Do you realize that the search 398k results for "Thessaloniki Airport" will include the 20k hits for "Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia"? This is exactly what I have been saying from the start. If you omit words from a search you are going to be looking at a superset of what you omitted which would naturally provide more hits regardless of any common English usage.
 * Also there are the permutations of "Thessaloniki Makedonia Airport", "Thessaloniki Macedonia Airport", "Makedonia Airtport" etc. And furthermore, the pages in the 398K results could very well include usage like "the Thessaloniki airport called Macedonia" or "Thessaloniki airport named Makedonia" or any English usage like that. We have to look at reliable english language uses if you want to go to such lenghts so let's do that. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 10:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Evidence for common English language usage per WP:COMMONNAME:

Theses are a couple of recent sources I could find. It's difficult to find articles that talk specifically about a certain airport in Greece unless some news is generated there. Shadow mor ph ^"^ 10:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Google
 * Google results sidebar title: Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia
 * Google maps pin title:Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia
 * Aviation sources
 * Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority: Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia"
 * Skyvector aeronautical charts: Makedonia Airport
 * ourairports.com airports and airfields wiki database: Thessaloniki Macedonia International Airport
 * Airport review: inconsistent, using "Thessaloniki Airport" in the title and "Thessaloniki’s “Makedonia” Airport" in the subtitle and in the article lead
 * Airport Business: again inconsistent as above
 * Aviation Pros: "Thessaloniki Airport"
 * An example use case - An English speaker wants to fly there:
 * Visits Star Alliance, a large international company site to book a flight: It uses "Makedonia Airport"
 * Goes to Trip Advisor to book a hotel nearby: "Makedonia Airport"
 * General news sources
 * New York Times: "The international airport carries the name Macedonia"... "suggesting that Thessaloniki’s airport could drop the name Macedonia".
 * NBC News: Uses "Macedonia Airport" in a casual way on an articles not relating to the name of the airport itself but rather an event in that area.
 * The National Herald: uses Thessaloniki’s ‘Macedonia’ airport casually in an article about severe weather.
 * Wikipedia
 * Macedonia airport redirects to this page. There is no other airport by that name
 * The article Macedonia still uses the proper title listing for the airport to pipe to the present article Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 10:59, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The minor issue of disambiguating with a rather rare case of confusion with any airport in North Macedonia is already covered in the hat link in the top "Macedonia Airport" redirects here. For airports pertaining to...
 * Wikipedia should strive to be NPOV according to the policy of WP:NPOVTITLE. Right now, it seems like the Wiki is deliberately omiting the proper name of this airport for reasons unknown. There is literally nobody that would complain if the name "Makedonia" is included in the title (even the people of North Macedonia have refrained from any such complain) while the opposite is true if it is not, e.g like Tsipras receives major backlash for calling Thessaloniki’s airport “Mikra” instead of “Makedonia”. Shadow mor ph  ^"^ 11:08, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To be completely frank, I don't really care what the Greek media said about Tsipras referring to the airport as Mikra instead of Makedonia, nor is this an argument for moving it. This is the English Wikipedia, and if the name "Makedonia Airport" is the most common term in Greek, then the Greek Wikipedia can have the article under "Αεροδρόμιο Μακεδονία" if it so wishes. But as it stands, "Thessaloniki Airport" is by far the most common name in English. I would note that for an article to be moved there needs to be wide consensus - it currently stands at 1 in favour and 2 against (2 v 2 if you count yourself), and even if it was 3 in favour and 2 against, this is a contentious move and it will not be moved in accordance with the move request closing instructions. I would also like an admin to get involved in this because this back-and-forth moving of the article is getting ridiculous. --Michail (blah) 14:07, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * FYI... this article is already move-protected because of all the b-a-f moving. It was protected by in September of 2018, and the protection is for an indefinite period of time. So an admin will be needed to rename this article.  Paine Ellsworth , ed.  put'r there  17:52, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose per . It looks like the current name is the WP:COMMONNAME and also, as an extra, the one most likely to be WP:RECOGNIZEd and WP:CONCISE as it includes just the city the airport serves, and no other detail. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 17:28, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Terminal Information is out of date.
There are now 2 terminals at SKG, the new one having opened in 2020, I believe. The terminals are numbered. Terminal 1 does not appear to be in use currently, but I believe it will be back in use once passenger numbers pick up again (else why number them?) I presume the current information is for Terminal 1. Jreed 01 (talk) 18:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)