Talk:At the airport

User:Globe-trotter has suggested by affixing a template to this article that:

"This topic may not meet the Wikivoyage criteria for a separate article and should be merged into Fundamentals of flying. If you have an opinion, please discuss on this article's talk page. Please do not add new content to this article, but instead add it to Fundamentals of flying. You can help by copying any relevant information from this page to the new page. Once all content has been copied, this article should be made into a redirect."

and I must say that I agree with him - but not for the templated reasons.

The advice at What is an article? is really adapted for destinations rather than travel topics like this article, but the nutshell advice is probably still applicable: 1) Articles should be relatively self-sufficient so that travellers can print them out, put in their back pocket, and use for travelling around.

2) At the same time, articles should not be so long that they're impossible to read, print, or use.

Since it is also unequivocally says there "Travel topics should have their own articles", this article obviously meets the currently published Wikivoyage criteria for a separate article and Fundamentals of flying is already one of the longest articles we have.

However, I shall now start work at User talk:Alice/Kitchen to merge the useful information from this article into the Fundamentals_of_flying section and report back when I have done that. -- (WV-en) A l i c e ✉ 04:01, 26 October 2012 (CEST)
 * Alice/Frank, i agree with G-t, as there is a lot of redundancy between the topics and we will not double content as this will confuse travellers. Jc8136 (talk) 09:20, 26 October 2012 (CEST)
 * I have now finished working at User talk:Alice/Kitchen and merged the useful information from this article into the Fundamentals_of_flying section there. Is that OK now? -- (WV-en) A l i c e ✉ 08:52, 28 October 2012 (CET)

US centricity in the security section
Some of this section seems to be based on TSA procedures. For comparison: in Australia (flying domestic) you typically do not present ID or a boarding pass at security (in fact allegedly Sydney airport is trying to set itself up airside as a shopping destination for non-passengers, I'm not convinced). The liquid ban in carry-on was discontinued in 2011 for domestic flights. Shoes are left on (and in fact security regards it as a touch suspicious if you try and remove your shoes). On the other hand, immediately after scanning it is very common to be selected for a chemical screening (involving a fairly non-invasive brush over with a testing wand) and I don't think that happens in the US, or at least not nearly as often. (There's the body scanning opt-out procedure, but that pat-down is much more comprehensive than what Australians do with the wanding.) The article presents liquid bans and ID checks as more or less universal and shoe removal as expected.

I don't have great ideas on how to fix it though: explaining the huge range of possible procedures in this section would be hard. Querent (talk) 02:10, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Spinning country-specific security advice into separate articles might be one way. Advice on dealing with security at the airport in certain places (the U.S., the UK, and Russia immediately come to my mind) is very helpful, and hasn't found a place in our country guides. Navigating TSA procedures is an issue that can sustain a full article. --Peter Talk 05:13, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * In my experience, security procedures, both official and actually applied, change often at airports, even depending on the company running the security (yes, it is often run by commercial enterprises). Even within the EU, you can expect one airport to have everybody's shoes removed and be very anal about liquids (especially if their retailer base applies strong pressure), as well as check your ID and boarding passes, while another only an hour's flight away will merely have you walk through a non-operational metal detector (I accidentally walked through a metal detector in Bologna with a belt with huge metal buckle on without incident). Having said which, some of the "anal" airports have briskier security than the lax ones, so no rule here.
 * I believe we should mention all of the possible restrictions and controls, of which there aren't many and they are really similar across the globe (you may be asked to remove your shoes, but not your underwear), and state that the actual application varies from airport to airport and country to country, and refer readers to individual airport pages to check what's on. I don't think it is reasonable to assume we are able to create and maintain individual country articles, and keep them verifiably accurate rather than disastrously misleading, with our current 500+ editor base.
 * Kindest, PrinceGloria (talk) 06:53, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * There are various country-specific oddities. In China, you cannot take a lighter on a plane; I've even had them ask me to remove one they noticed with an X-ray from checked luggage. In the Philippines, I was told I could not bring a small folding umbrella except in checked luggage; since the flight did not allow checked luggage (minor airline, going Davao-Iloilo). I discarded the umbrella.


 * Such things might be mentioned here, but details belong in country articles. Pashley (talk) 18:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)


 * If and when our article on air travel in the United States is created (that country's "by plane" section is getting ridiculously long), we can at least deal with the universially loved, err I mean hated TSA Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Does volunteering actually still happen?
I vaguely recall that airlines sometimes asked for volunteering in the 1990's.

In the past 15 years I have flown extensively throughout Europe, East Asia, Australia and (to a lesser extent) North America and have never once been asked to do this. This includes flights that have been full.

Is this still relevant information? (Maybe I am just really lucky :) ) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:58, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes volunteering is still alive and well. It is much less frequent due to airlines having better tracking of passengers flights and the benefit of historical data to better project numbers for missing flights or cancellations opening up seats on other flights. One portion that I as a travel consultant feel is very easily overlooked yet vitally important is the idea that a flight reservation and a ticketed flight are not the same thing. a Reservation is just the allegation that you will purchase a ticket and intend to travel on a given flight at specified date and time. A ticketed flight is actually the payment being transferred to the airline and the airline acknowledging the payment by issuance of a ticked and coupons for each flight that has been paid for. (yes tickets and coupons don't exist in a physical sense but they do in an electronic sense and any flight that you may have a reservation for but not a ticket (or ticket # for) means your passage has not been accepted and if you get to the counter to try to obtain a boarding pass they will say "you have no confirmed ticket for travel." IE: you need to buy one at todays rate if you want to be on this plane. With international flights and so many codeshare "partners" it becomes more blurry who you purchased the ticket from in comparison to the airline your ticket may be for.  such as Air France may operate Certain Delta flights or vise versa.  The first 3 digits tell who ticketed your flight (accepted payment from you for passage) --66.176.168.98 21:10, 7 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I have heard of US Air Marshals demanding seats on flights at last minute, meaning paying passengers get bumped off. Not sure if that is the same as 'volunteering' --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you mean by volunteering the airline asking people to volunteer to take a latter flight for a payment of a few hundred Euros. Yes still happens. Twice in last year have had it on international fights. --Traveler100 (talk) 00:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * May I ask which airlines and routes? (assuming that isn't too personal) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:55, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Lufthansa - Frankfurt/Tokyo/Detroit --Traveler100 (talk) 05:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In the 1990s, I was bumped off a flight from Newark to Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, they fraudulently insisted I had "volunteered", and they refused to pay me anything. I forget which airline it was, but I boycotted them for years as a result of that shabby treatment, then figured it was so long ago it was no longer worth a continuing boycott. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:45, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * This kind of thing did happen in the 90's a lot because there were significantly fewer flights and the booking systems were less computerised. (remember paper tickets?) . I thought poor publicity (such as that which you experienced) was a major driver for moving away from this.
 * Actually I have been bumped a few times in the last 5 years... up to business class on full flights :) I guess that is better publicity. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, still happens in Europe every now and then, in particular Scandinavian Airlines seems to like to overbook their flights out of CPH. €300, anyone? ϒpsilon (talk) 04:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * At least European airlines still do that. I've heard of a case on Air France / KLM. Bumped, got money and then demanded money according to the EU passenger rights on top of the money for getting bumped. He got the money for EU passenger rights and the money for getting bumped. Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:50, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for inputs. Seems my experience of never getting bumped is atypical. (Although getting bumped appears to still be an exception and not something you seem to regularly experience) Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:36, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Airport wifi passwords
Just found this article: https://www.indy100.com/article/passwords-airports-around-world-travel-holiday-smartphone-7501036

It's an article which gives wifi details for lots of airports around the world, including wifi passwords for some lounges in these airports. Would this be useful for some of the airport article on this site? Don't know whether it would be or not? Thanks.  Seagull123  Φ  21:38, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Publishing passwords for private lounges would run afoul of the WV:Illegal activities policy. It's fine to include information about connectivity in airports, just not things like passwords that would only be given to users with lounge access. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 01:18, 1 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks for your reply. I just didn't know whether it would be useful or not.  Seagull123  Φ  13:06, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Outline airports
A new user has recently created Abel Santamaría Airport which will likely have to be merged (do participate in the merger discussion). Another recently created airport article - Hamburg Airport is a bit more on the fence, but I would also lean towards it not meeting our criteria (especially since neither Tegel nor Schönefeld have an article and while the justification of Berlin Brandenburg International opening "soon" makes some sense, we should not hold off on creating articles for what might be. Otherwise we can just delete Florida because due to global warming it will "soon" cease to exist). There are also some pre-existing airport articles that are a bit questionable such as London Stansted Airport or some of the others listed here (though this might in part be an artifact of the criteria for airport status that make it hard for an airport without on-site hotels to attain "usable" status). What should we do about them? Ideally we should not have any outline airport articles because they should either be able to be promoted or not meet our criteria. Or do our criteria not fit what kinds of airports should get articles any more? Should we merge some outline airports? Should we change the criteria for an airport to become usable? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As I am seeing only now, the point of changing the criteria for usable status has been previously raised at Wikivoyage talk:Airport guide status unfortunately without much coming off it. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Which of the airports with Outline articles in your opinion don't clearly merit having an article? OK, Abel Santamaría Airport, sure, but other than that? I'd argue for the article about Stansted, a somewhat borderline case, to remain in existence, but none of the others look questionable article topics to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:58, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * George Bush Intercontinental Airport? -- Matroc (talk) 04:18, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Airport for Houston with lots of traffic. The "article" is a joke, but I'm not sure the subject isn't meritorious. Obviously, it could be merged for now, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:22, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I put a merge-tag on Hamburg Airport Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Check in machines
Those are getting less and less common as most people do the online check in thing or checking in via app. Should the article reflect this? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:01, 18 April 2019 (UTC)


 * If so, yes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Anybody else wish to weigh in? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:50, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Three "sister infoboxes" at AMS IST and FRA
I made infoboxes at our articles on AMS, IST and FRA informing readers of their rivalry (mostly exhibited by their home carriers) as to which airport is the "best connected". Not only is this an interesting tidbit, but I think it is of obvious value to travelers to know that those airports have direct flights nearly everywhere... Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:57, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Interesting idea. I'm surprised Dubai and/or Doha don't have the same number of destinations. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:36, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Excellent. It's nice to find something interesting to say about airports beyond the essentials. --Bigpeteb (talk) 16:53, 30 September 2019 (UTC)