Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Airlines)

Note: These guidelines are not complete and could use some general comments on what should be provided.

This is a set of suggested guidelines for articles on specific airline. Some Wikipedians prefer a standardised look and feel to articles on closely-related subjects and these guidelines exist to facilitate achieving that goal for articles about aircraft.

For general guidelines about writing and editing Wikipedia articles, see Category:Wikipedia style guidelines.

Remember that you're in no way obliged to follow all, or even any, of these guidelines to contribute an article.

Structure
Highlighted suggested heading are links to the specific project discussion page. The basic Wiki guidelines should be followed with the following comments:

Introduction and infobox
The introduction should include the owner of the airline and some general comments about the airline. Once the airline is created as a company, it can be included as an article. Information about an owning company should be included in the article for that company. The IATA and ICAO codes should be checked to see that they are redirects to the airline or that a disambiguation page exists that includes the airline. The codes should also be added to IATA airline designator and ICAO airline designator lists.

The Infobox airline template should be added to all articles for the basic information. Please see the template documentation for more information on what should be included and what parameters to use. Unnecessary repeating of this information in the body of the article is discouraged.

History
Care should be taken in the structure so that different versions of the airline are clearly marked.
 * Slogans list by date with the oldest first-slogan (from-to)
 * Notable advertising campaigns
 * Livery

Destinations
WikiProject Airlines/AfD record contains a list of past AfDs on this topic.

Destinations can be either used as the word-based format shown in articles like Air Berlin destinations, in a table & referenced format with start/end dates like List of Braathens destinations & List of Cathay Dragon destinations, or in a table without start/end dates such as List of British Airways destinations and American Airlines destinations.

Only list destinations. Flight schedules or routing should not be included in this section. Code share destinations should not be listed for the secondary carrier. For airlines with limited destinations, the information can be included in line. Also, flags are not to be used in any destination list. This is in accordance with MOS:FLAGS, which states that flags should only be used when a subject actually represents a country, which is usually not the case for an airport.

Once an airline has enough destinations, they could be listed as a collapsible table, or in a stand alone article.

Bulleted list format
One way of listing destinations is with a bulleted list. Destinations should be listed in alphabetical order by country like this:


 * Country
 * City – Airport

If more than one airport is served them list as:


 * Country
 * City
 * Airport1
 * Airport2

If needed the list can be sorted by continent and region in stand alone articles only. It is suggested that regions are only used if the number of countries in a continent exceeds ten.

Destinations for other than passenger service should be included as a heading to describe the type of scheduled service such as:
 * Cargo
 * Charter
 * Military

Table format
Here are some guidelines on how to format a table destination list with start and end dates. It is your choice to use the word based format or the table based format, but many members of this project would recommend using the table-based format because it was used in two featured lists, List of Braathens destinations and List of Cathay Dragon destinations.
 * In accordance with MOS:FLAGS do not add country flags to the table based format because airports do not really represent a particular country, which is required for flags to be added.
 * As per Manual of Style/Linking countries should not be linked. Although the MoS also says that major cities should not be linked most airline articles will link them.
 * Destination lists should always be sorted by country, not by city. They should also have the ability to be sorted by the reader.
 * Country subdivisions (such as states, provinces, or counties) can be added in parentheses in the country column or a separate column can be added. Not every country has subdivisions so do not create a separate column for these as it may be blank in many cases.
 * Do not use colors to identify certain types of destinations as this makes the table harder to edit, even by experienced editors. Instead state whether the destination is terminated, a hub, seasonal, etc., using words not colors. They should be listed in a separate "Notes" column (see second example below) if the table does not have start/ end dates.
 * Destination lists should always include some general info about the airline in addition to the list of destinations. It should include a short description (1–2 paragraphs) with general info about the airline such as a little history of the airline and how its destinations have changed over the years.
 * Information about routing and cities served from a particular destination should not be included (Wikipedia is not a travel guide), unless a certain route is particularly notable (for example Singapore Airlines' Newark–Singapore route is the longest in the world).
 * Do not add IATA/ICAO airport codes as these are not widely used outside the aviation industry and can be easily found by clicking on the link to the airport's article.
 * Adding start/end dates is strongly encouraged but in many cases the information may be unavailable or hard to find. Even if the information on start/end dates is unavailable, terminated destinations should still be present in the table. And they should be marked as "Terminated" in order to differentiate from destinations currently served by the airline.
 * And of course, destinations should always be suitably referenced by adding a ref to the "Ref" column in the table. Ideally, all rows of the ref column should be filled with refs.

Example tables with start/end dates
The following are examples of what the table format should look like. This does not represent service of any real airline, and is purely for demonstration purposes only. Foo Airlines [this should be linked to the airline's article] flies to the following destinations as of March 2012:

Example table without start/end dates
This is an example of a destination table without start and end dates. While it is highly recommended to use start and end dates, in many cases these may be very hard to find references stating when service began or ended, especially for established airlines. This table is just an example and does not represent service of any real airline.

Table 2
In order to easily add the color-coded cells in the "Notes" column, there are some templates you can use. To mark terminated destinations, add into the cell. Use the template to mark hubs, the template  for focus cities, template  for seasonal destinations and  for a destination which is about to begin in near future (along with a particular first flight date).

Codeshare agreements
A list of the Codeshare agreements the airline has with other airlines is to be included. It is generally a subsection of the destinations section. Please do not include the alliance information of the partner airlines. Also, flags are not to be used when listing codeshares.

Fleet
A list of the aircraft flown by the airline and the number of each. Other material should be limited to seating, aircraft on order and route information. Lists or tables should not include individual aircraft tail numbers unless they have encyclopedic value. Other than the number of seats other information on the aircraft (for example engines fitted, Boeing customer codes or wingtip devices) should not be included. Please do not include wet-leased aircraft. Fleet age information should not be included. Orders are for new aircraft only, other aircraft to be acquired second-hand or leased should be mentioned in the Notes.

Fleets should be displayed as either a simple text list or as a table as appropriate:

or
 * 3 × Boeing 737-300
 * 2 × Boeing 777-200ER (One on order)

If an airline has a configuration including Business and First the fleets should be represented as shown:

The commonly accepted cabin abbreviations are:
 * Y: Economy
 * Y+: Economy plus (extra legroom)
 * W: Premium economy (typically a different seat type and cabin)
 * C or J: Business
 * F: First

Aircraft on display
Aircraft formerly operated by the airline can be listed if on public display in the markings of the airline for example:


 * Boeing 767-200 N102DA Spirit of Delta is on display at the Delta Flight Museum, Atlanta.

Airline Affinity Programs
Airline Affinity Programs should include information about frequent flyer programs and membership clubs.
 * Membership clubs and frequent flyer program participation should be listed in the Airline infobox and the programs should have their own articles if they are large or well known.
 * List Airline partners for Frequent Flyer programs and list Locations of the airline clubs.
 * Mention any other programs that the airline participates in and link to more information about the program if it is available.

Services

 * Food and Beverages
 * Entertainment
 * Special needs
 * Class of travel (Coach, business, Premium, Executive, First, ...)
 * Freight
 * Charter
 * Lease wet or dry
 * Helicopter
 * Hajj Pilgrimage
 * Air Ambulance/health services

Incidents and accidents
Accidents or incidents should only be included if:
 * The event was fatal to either aircraft occupants or persons on the ground;
 * The event involved hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft or airport;
 * The event resulted in changes to procedures, regulations or processes affecting airports, airlines or the aircraft industry.

Information not to be included
Types of material that should not be included include:
 * Tables of flight numbers by destination
 * Lists of tail numbers
 * Extensive information about the airline's frequent flyer program, cabin layout and amenities, etc. Remember that Wikipedia is not a travel guide.