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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Linked coordinates

I noticed that the coordinates are not linked in this infobox, and asked for help over at WikiProject Geographical Coordinates. User:Docu offered to alter this template and use his bot to fix the articles to use the altered Infobox template, if it's OK with the editors here. OK? --Scott Davis Talk 13:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Wow - there's a place we can ask for help with coordinates :). I had clarkk fix the coordinates up on Template:Infobox Australian Airport a while ago. Same should apply here.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 14:01, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Looks good, especially if somebody else is going to do the grunt work! Wangi 20:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The bug that prevented the use of the {{coor dms}} template has now been fixed - I'll update the description on how to enter the info... wangi 14:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
There's a minor problem with the coordinates. If the listed coordinates are like this 56 30N, 114 30W then the page shows 56°30′N″114, 43°W′type:airport″{{{8}}}. If you list the coordinates as 56 30 00N, 114 30 00W then the resulting map is not always in the correct place. Trout Lake Airport (Alberta) ends up being several miles west of where it really is and you can't see the airport but Cambridge Bay Water Aerodrome is pretty much in the correct place. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 19:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
It's all down to accuracy of the coords you're giving - by only really specifying degrees and minutes it's not accurate enough. Need to find a source with the the coords to seconds accuracy, or work it out yourself. Thanks/wangi 23:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Opened?

I've come across articles in which this template says "Opened: [[{{{opened}}}]]". Where does "Opened" go, exactly? The template has it but isn't very self-explanatory, and it isn't mentioned here. (comment by Gyrofrog)

Look back in the archives for earlier talk on why "opened" wasn't added to the infobox - it would appear that someone added this to the infobox without discussion about two weeks back. I have reverted this change. Of course if anyone thinks it should be in the infobox then make your point here. Wangi 17:01, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Just noticed that if an airport infobox was created using the version that has the opened in it AND there is a date in the opened section then the info box is a mess. I'm removing them as I see them. CambridgeBayWeather 11:45, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, that'll be where more than a year was put in and somebody got smart trying to get it all wikilinking up, e.g. July 11]], [[1983
Wangi 12:09, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Yep that's what does it and in some cases it was me. CambridgeBayWeather 12:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Template roll out

Before the tempate is rolled out any farther, necessary modifications should be made to avoid having to "double-back". The coordinates should be linked, as they are in almost every other infobox nowadays. The code is available in {{Infobox Australian Airport}} - though the AU region bit needs to be dropped. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 14:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

MSL

Is it too lat to suggest that the infobox would be more correct to say ASL and link to Above mean sea level rather than MSL? I find MSL looks odd as it a term used in weather. Or link MSL to Above mean sea level. CambridgeBayWeather 21:24, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Reading the articles that makes perfect sense, I'll change the template/Wangi 12:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, that looks better. At work we take the station pressure and reduce it to the MSL, it's transmitted to the weather centre but not given out to pilots or the public. It's actually used by the forecasters. That's why I thought it looked odd. CambridgeBayWeather 12:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
MSL linking to Above mean sea level makes more sense to me. I've never seen the term AMSL until I took a close look at the infobox this morning. While ASL may seem to make more sense to non-pilots, its dab page is incredibly long, indicating a large possibility of confusion (even if not linking to the dab page). MSL is assumed in an AFD and aeronautical charts to be "above mean sea level". You'd see it as "3,650 MSL" in these official documents, but you would not see it like this with unofficial, online sources like AirNav. Thadius856 21:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

template vs. inline

Are we going with a template or inline coding for the infobox? I read through the archives and could not find an answer. {{Airline infobox}} would be a good example for a template. The coding there only displays the information that is available. This has the effect of keeping the infobox smaller when there is less information to display. Vegaswikian 00:02, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion

I would like to suggest that the infobox should at least contain the following

  1. handling capacity (passenger),
  2. Parking bays (for aircraft),
  3. date of opening
  4. Passenger numbers,
  5. Cargo handled
  6. Aircraft served.

The reason is that an airport is not merely a coordinate or some concrete strips; rather, an airport is a transportation service hub, and hence information on its services are essential and should be included as quickfact. As a result of the omission, infobox in some airport's article had to be trimmed in order to "conform" to the standardized (but rather inadequate) format. The country's infobox is more elaborate and problems (due to the size) have being resolved; so size should not be a reason why airport's infobox cannot be expanded to contain these essential and interesting quickfact. I hope you guys can consider this suggestion. I understand that it will take effort to implement a change and issues may arise, but that is a risk we have to accept when initiating a Project such as this. Afterall, wikipedia is a growing encyclopedia and we should constantly seek improvement. --Vsion 05:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Vsion, first off I wouldn't equate adding tons of dry naked facts and brittle data as improvement. Of the items you list the only one I agree as useful is #4. The rest are of limited interest I think:
  1. handling capacity - of no real impact, many airports operate well above design.
  2. Parking bays - ambiguous, on ramp? remote stands? Again what is the reason that this is something essential to know quickly?
  3. Date of opening - I'll leave you to read the archives, I beleive consensus was reached
  4. Passenger numbers
  5. Cargo handled - mention in-article, within cargo section
  6. Aircraft served - ATMs I presume? Brittle data that needs updated all the time.
I beleive the infobox should contain critical important facts for quick reference. It should be short and to the point. The article should contain other information in-line, ideally prose but perhaps table or list format. Year-by-year lists of figures should be cited/linked rather then included in the article.
Thanks/wangi 15:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I considered myself out of this project, but I cant help commenting here, for I find some of the comments made above woefully shocking.
  1. "many airports operate well above design." So for this reason, handling capacity is not crucial information? I am not too sure if "many" airports is a verified statement or one based on assumption. Either way, if it can be shown that airports tend to "overstuff" themselves, why should that not be important to wikipedia?
  2. Airports has been moving towards building more aerobridges over remote stands, and it is of airport planning significance. In fact, planners do try to incorporate as many aerobridges as possible via various forms of terminal configuration designs. Is this of little importance?
  3. Why would you think passenger numbers are important, while cargo handled is not? Because humans can think while cargo cant?
It does seem to me that if individuals like yourself may quit thinking that wikipedia's airport articles are only read by potential air passengers, our airport pages will at least have a chance to become respectable articles anyone can refer to.--Huaiwei 16:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Huaiwei, I think they are all important things to consider, and should be discussed in the article itself properly. Abandoning them in an infobox does them no justice - they are not quick facts as you have demonstrated yourself. Thanks/wangi 16:31, 28 October 2005 (UTC).
I dont think I am proposing that they be in the infobox and removed from the main text. I am proposing that they be mentionedin the infobox as well as in the main text. Unless of coz everyone here thinks the only thing important about an airport is how many runways it has, and how long and wide they are?--Huaiwei 16:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Why not a second infobox. I suspect that there are too many airports that don't have the information available. There are 1700+ airports in Canada alone and of that I would guess that less than half keep all those stats. So if they were added to the current infobox then a lot of airports would have empty spaces in the box. If a second box was used then it could be added only for those airports that had the info available. CambridgeBayWeather 17:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
If we were to use a template that only displayed the entries where there was data, then the absence of this data on most airport infoboxes would not be noticed. However that does not address the bigger question of what should be included. Based on other infoboxes, having the date opened would be logical. For the other items in this suggestion I would support them only if the infobox template made their display optional since I don't think they will be easly available for most ariports and only if a convincing agument can be made for them being in the infobox. In other words, why are they so important that they need to be there. Right now I have not seen any reason being offered as to why they belong in the info box. Vegaswikian 17:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Wangi, you wrote that the "rest are of limited interest, I think". Let me suggest an objective method to assess which items are important. Please take a look the Fast Facts pages of the airports websites: Denver, Louisville, Philadelphia. These websites clearly show that all the suggested items are important. Other airports' pages have similar content. I don't think we need to express our personal opinion here, the industry has already determined for us what are important. --Vsion 03:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that the airports own web site, which is a sales aid for the airport, is a good basis for an encylopedia? Vegaswikian 05:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Is there a better suggestion, beside using wikipedians' opinion? Most airport are public infrastructure supervised by their respective cities or counties, I don't see any problem using their websites as source of info? If you are not satisfied, how about looking at IATA report, what airport statistics are they most interested in? [1] It's capacity and demand, of course! I'm not criticising anybody here but just trying to be constructive in the discussion, and I believe arguments should best be suported by facts and research. --Vsion 06:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
If you look at Category:Aviation statistics, again it is passenger and cargo traffic that are featured. I don't see any List of airports by elevation. Anyway, Wangi has agreed that passenger traffic should be included. I urge the inclusion of cargo, aircraft and capacity as well. And how could we omit the opening date? All infoboxes (countries, movies, albums) have dates except airports. --Vsion 06:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I did not say that the data is not valid. I did say that the presence of the data on those web sites is not justification of a need to include that data in the infobox, or in an article for that matter. Those web sites are advertising, plain and simple. The better solution is to develop concensus here as to what should be added to the infobox and what should be left in articles outside of the infobox. Even the IATA site is biased since that is an industry group. Again the data is probably accurate, but being on the web site is not justification for including here. Vegaswikian 06:52, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I understand, my motivation here is to convince others that these items are useful and essential, and I've provided reasons and objective references to show that traffic and capacity are the most common airport statistics. If majority still disagree, then these items will not be added to the project's template. But there's another issue: I feel it is inappropriate to remove significant amount of content in existing articles' infobox or other sections just for the sake of standarization, without considering the effort and opinion of other contributors. The project establishes only guideline, not policy and one shoe does not fit all. We need to be more creative and flexible, e.g. by using two or more different template formats, etc. Afterall, there are different types of airports: military, international and domestic. For international airports, these information are easily available and commonly cited. --Vsion 13:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
What do you mean by aircraft served? Is this the same as movements or is it a different figure? I would suspect that numbers 1, 4, 5, and 6 are likely to be a little suspect and what are they really used for. Vegaswikian suggests that they are adverts but aimed at who? I don't think that passengers pick an airport based on higher figures. In fact I would avoid, if possible, a larger and busier airport, as people already do with London Heathrow Airport. I would think that the figures are aimed more at the Government in a effort to secure funding. Thus, the figures are going to be inflated, with the exception of number one. Even the official figures for aircraft movements put out by governments may not be totally accurate. Several Canadian airports, including Cambridge Bay, are showing no movments for several years but we have had 5000-6000 movments a year. Vsion, you said that the information is essential but I would have to disagree with that. It's certainly interesting but no more essential than having the runway surface as concrete, asphalt or turf. A good example as to why the info should be included is to look at things like Upminster Bridge tube station. Not all the stations have the box though. Having said all that I do think that the information could be included as Vegaswikian suggested, so you would not see a lot of blank space if there was missing information. One other thing that I think should be included is the offset from Coordinated Universal Time. CambridgeBayWeather 15:33, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, Upminster Bridge tube station is a good example, it includes traffic, number of platform (equivalent to parking bay?) and opening date. And I understand that accuracy of the data is always an issue in wikipedia, even now people are debating on the GDP measure, see the lamb revert war [2] at List of countries by GDP (nominal); although I don't think we should shy away from putting out verifiable data in the major airports. --Vsion 22:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Are the figures really intentionally inflated to secure public funds? That's sound illegal to me, at least in developed countries. Don't they perform audits? -Vsion 02:51, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Probably best to step back a bit... There seems to be two differing opinions on what should be in the infobox. I am of the opinion (and I know this is common elsewhere on Wikipedia) that the infobox should have as little as possible - it should be only information useful at quick glance, it should be in addition to the same information in the article itself. However there also seems to be the view that all sorts of facts and figures should go into the infobox, and not in the main article (again this is common in Wikipedia, lots of scarey monster infoboxes!). I think the airline infobox as it is is about right, perhaps it could do with the latest year's (not all!) passenger numbers, but the year opened should be left to the history section. The other suggestions are more fit for the article itself. Lets have a look back at the infobox as it was for SIN: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Singapore_Changi_Airport&oldid=25344543 - that's far too big! Remember too that infobox had a link back to here for discussion, I was only changing the infobox based on that consensus. wangi 17:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Let me clarify the misunderstanding and I apologize for any confusion caused: the traffic items I suggested are all to be latest year figures, so we can all agree that it is verifiable, stable, and easily available for major airports. Some of these data is already available in World's busiest airports by passenger traffic, etc. When I said "essential", what I'm refering to is what an encycleodia reader would be most interested, it's about acquiring general knowledge of the airport and understanding it as an aviation hub. Of course, everybody are interested in different things, but I've shown (reference given) that capacity and demand are of interest to large group of people. Can you counter that by showing, with evidence, who are more interested in runway suface material or runways width? I believe our differing opinions are due to different perspectives. Are you guys private jets pilots? because if so, I can understand why coordinates and runway surface type are more interesting to you. Vegaswikian's suggestion is workable, simply by using two different template formats, (maybe there are better technical solutions, but I'm not sure), and I think this is a way to go, and that the items I suggested go only to the major airports, where infor is available. --Vsion 22:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure that you have proved your points with your sources. They are biased. Given the lack of support for any of the proposals I suspect that nothing will be changing in the near future, there is no concensus Vegaswikian 23:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we have fairly clear consensus that "Passenger traffic" and "opening date" should be included. For the other statistics, Vsion and Huaiwei feel that they should be included, and CambridgeBayWeather wrote that it could be included if it doesn't create blank space in other airport that don't have the data, and therefore I suggest using another template for major airport to contain these. I also agree with CambridgeBayWeather to include the timezone, which is very important. --Vsion 23:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I would agree with the view that there is information missing. "Passenger traffic" (for the most recent month or year), "cargo throughput" (for the most recent month or year), "opening date" and "timezone" are important quick-reference facts. I agree that the first three above may not be available for all articles, but timezone definitely would be. Therefore, I'd suggest timezone be included in the main infobox template, and the other three used to create another template. Johnwalton 18:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
It is not necessary to create a new infobox to do this! A correctly written infobox can be created to not display the heading if there is no data for some fields. One example is Template:Infobox Airline which does this for several fields. I see some logic for including the time zone using the format in other infoboxes (Pacific: UTC-8/-7). I would oppose monthly statistics, the one airport I know that is doing this is even predicting what the next month's number will be! If we go with any stats, they should be from an accepted source and if possible updated by a bot. If you believe that there is concensus for a certain field, bring that up asking for a vote to see if we have concensus. Vegaswikian 20:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
It would be difficult to obtain stats for each airport from one source. In the UK, it would be easy enough to use stats from the CAA which are audited, but I'm not sure whether similar stats are made available in other countries, and whether the stats are reliable. Personally, I think multiple sources are acceptable, providing that each source is referenced and verifiable (and for me, that would include an airports own website). I'd agree that yearly stats would be more appropriate than monthly statistics. Johnwalton 14:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I would strongly oppose the addition of passenger statistics, unless we are talking about a single figure for the last year - I certinly do not want to see figures for multiple years - that's not what an infobox is for. Granularity should a year, a month is far too often to update.
I cannot see the utility in "date opened" - most airports have more complex history, making such a single date largely pointless. It's also not a critical bit of information.
Cargo throughput would be better delt with in a cargo section of the article, or ignored if one is not present (i.e. not-notable). Thanks/wangi 14:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This morning while doing some edits on Québec/Jean Lesage International Airport I found that the name of the company that runs the airport (Aéroport de Québec) redirects to the article. So I tried it as an external link in the infobox. What does anyone else think. I wait to hear others opinons before I do any more in that way. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

type: private vs public

In the US at least, there are 3 levels possible between the 2 --- use vs. ownership. A non-military airport can be public ownership, public use, or private ownership, public use, or private/private. The field name "type" is pretty ambiguous for people trying to infer what to put in in the "private ownership/public use" case. Please advise. BACbKA 20:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox migration

Is there a reason to just strike through the completed migrations? Given the number completed, it would be nice to be able to remove them. Vegaswikian 09:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

With regards to migration, i've just noticed that Newcastle Airport has been converted from the old style to the new style infobox. The old box had historical information such as number of passengers and movements, which was not incorporated into the main article when the box was migrated. It would be useful if those performing the migration for other airports to make sure that information being taken out of an infobox is included in the main article before migrating the box - otherwise this information may be lost. Johnwalton 18:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Olds-Didsbury Airport

For some reason I can't think of the correct way to get two towns into the infobox and link correctly. I've got it working but I'm left with [[ and ]] at each end. Can someone fix it as my brain's mushy today. Lack of sun I expect. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I have found exactly the same problem with the new infobox, where only one link is allowed. The old infobox was far better in this regard, because it used to allow multiple town/city/location links. Can something please be done to reticify the situation and return the multiple links ability to the new infobox. It would definitely improve the situation. Thanks. Figaro 00:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Figaro, are you refering to Brisbane Airport? I noticed that I actually updated that "serves" in the infobox a few days back - what's wrong with simply saying "Brisbane"? Thanks/wangi 14:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Airports needing infoboxes - completed

I have added infoboxes for all the airports needing infoboxes that are listed. If there are any more that need done, then I am more than willing to do them. Callumm 19:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

  • There are many more. I'll bet that every stub article needs an infobox. Don't know of an easy way to find which articles don't have an infobox without looking at each one. If you start at Category:Airports and look at the articles, they do change color after you have opened the article, so anyone that you have not opened could need an infobox. Good luck. Vegaswikian 21:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
To save you some time searching, all Canadian airports (stubs or not) have infoboxes. Also I have a small spreadsheet that you can enter the data to create multiple airport infoboxes. It produces an infobox for each airport than you can copy and paste. If anyone has a use for it let me know. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I've added a bunch of Australian & New Zealand ones to the list. Ta/wangi 09:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Have begun work on adding infoboxes for the listed airports. Should be finished by tomorrow morning. Thanks for the spreadsheet, CambridgeBayWeather! It saves a lot of time. Callumm 20:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
All but five have now been completed. I couldn't find information for the five which haven't been completed, so if anyone could help there, then it would be much appreciated. Callumm 10:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added a new batch of airports including every airport in South America with an article but no infobox that I could find and a few more from Africa. I don't mind searching for the articles but seeing as the list is getting quite long I'll leave it for a while. --Fozi999 01:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I've just added links for 776 airports with no infobox. Rather than list them on the page the are in CambridgeBayWeather/Airports with no infobox. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest Geelong Airport is taken off the list. It is an unlicensed aerodrome and there is no information on runway lengths etc. in ERSA (Official Australian Aviation Publication). If they don't list information I don't see why Wikipedia should. Fine to keep the article but I'd forget about the infobox. Justinbrett 01:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I just got the latest dump and ran through it. There are about 500 airports without an infobox and another 500 without the airport codes template. The links are on the project page. Also it appears there are 28,000+ airports with an infobox. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 04:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I notice the new list of airports without an infobox has some airports listed that do have an infobox such as Baghdad International Airport and Bahrain International Airport. I know they have an infobox because I recently added them myself. Is there any reason why they are included in the list? As far as I'm aware I was adding the infoboxes correctly. --Fozi999 10:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It's something to do with the way I searched through the dump. I noticed the same thing when I started on the "airport codes" yesterday. I may have got the wrong file (enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2) or not searched through it in the correct way. Look at what I got for airports with an infobox, that seems too large. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I see the problem now. The directory was created on the 28-May but the file was created on the 19-May, 3 days before you put the box in. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Airport types

I think we need a fourth type of airport. We have public, private and military but airports like Eureka Airport don't really fit into any of the three types. It's run by the government but it's not a public airport, so I suggest the type government. An comments? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say that 'private' would be an appropriate designation for the Eureka airport. If it doesn't allow public access, and is thusly private, who owns the airport is secondary. 'Military' is a part of this infobox, but basically supercedes public or private, because there are airports (primary function military) which allow public access, and those that do not. Skybunny 18:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Chilas Airport

I found this earlier while looking for airports with no codes. The headings given were 07/25 but if you look at an aerial shot the angle looks more like 10/19. Hard to find data on this one thought. Any comments? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. Someone created several Pakistan airports and used 07/25 in them all. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Cellpadding

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before. I searched through the archives and did not find anything. Would it be possible to add at least minimal padding (1px or 2px) to the {{Airport frame}} template for readability? -- Usgnus 19:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Possible infobox changes

I noticed that User:ColBog had centered the runway data in the infobox using <center> at El Edén International Airport. I think that this improves the look of the box and would like to see the template updated to reflect this.

The other change I would like to see is the template automatically link the surface type. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Do the common surface types link to the right things when simply linked? grass, concrete, paved, bitumen... ?
I think the way the runway data is currently is best, especially when there's more than one runway... I think/wangi 21:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
There is at least one runway surface type that needs a pipe, can't think which one. Lots of them are linked anyway as I've been doing them. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see a box for airport logos between the airport name and infobox photo.
I would suggest that if the airport has a logo then use it in the infobox and move any picture into the article rather than make the box larger. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 19:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

AirNav Data

Is the distance from town in their entries statute miles or nautical miles? The CFS is in nautical because that's what the pilots in North America use. Makes a minor difference to the article in converting to km. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:Airport codes

I see the bolding got removed here. I'm not sure that's an improvment. What does anybody else think. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I like it better with the bold. I can't see any reason to remove it in the first place. --Fozi999 11:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Change "closest town" to "serves"

I propose to change the name of the field "closest town" to "serves" in order to prevent confusion in what the field is supposed to contain. It renders as "serves" in the infobox, but what editors in the blank template is "closest town". (I think most people would agree they should be consistent.) Unfortunately, some editors have interpreted "closest town" to be the actual town the airport is located in, which has led to some odd entries. In most metropolitan areas, the airports are at the edge of the urban area, and not in the principal city, so the "closest town" is often a suburb that is not well-known outside the area. The intent of the field is clearly to present the market or major city that the airport serves (and that is how the field renders).

Also note that the annotation for the infobox says, "Name of the town or city the airport serves. In many cases an airport is associated with a major city but actually is closer to a smaller town, in this case list the major city."

Please see also my comments at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports#Serves_XXX. --MCB 00:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Airport names in infoboxes

Do we include the native name in the infobox airport title area (e.g., Munich International Airport<br>Flughafen München Franz Josef Strauß)? If so, do we use small font, or normal font? --physicq210 19:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I've always been including the alternate names (not always native names though) but using small font like this to reduce space rather than this. Also I noticed that some airport have italics in the box and some don't. I'm not bothered either way but a standard would be a good idea. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I've been using "nativename=" for secondary names like Marin County Airport (Gnoss Field). I was under the impression that's what it was created for. At least if we use this convention, we could always decide to resize it later in the template, instead of having to manually edit every airport if we change our preferences later. In other words, it seems like "nativename=" works for both native names and secondary names, except those that have non-western characters (nativename-a= is for those). Thadius856 21:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Image size in Template: Airport image

The current template sets the width of all images to 200 pixels. This causes smaller images to be distorted, so some people have used workarounds to display an undistorted image. Using Southwest Florida International Airport as an example, this edit shows the article when the image was first added:

{{Airport image|airport_image=RSWLogo.jpg}}

The actual width is 172 pixels, but it appears distorted because the template displays it at 200 pixels. Later, this version of the page shows the infobox updated to display the image at its native width by using embedded wiki table markup:

|align="center" colspan="4"|[[Image:RSWLogo.jpg|centre]]

I have added a width parameter to the template, so these smaller images can be displayed without distortion (see this edit):

{{Airport image|airport_image=RSWLogo.jpg|width=172}}

This should not affect any existing images, because the width defaults to 200 pixels if the parameter does not exist. If there are any major objections, I'm sure someone will revert my edit, otherwise the project page can be updated to describe the use of the width parameter. Zyxw 11:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks/wangi 14:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Centering Runway Surface

I'm looking at the template and thinking that the infobox would look better if the Surface column (runway_surface=) was centered on the template. What do you guys think? Thadius856 21:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Runway

Keep an eye out on this. I noticed that the runway lengths were wrong and when I looked at the template I saw this edit. It left the "ft" and "m" in the same place in the infobox but swapped the actual lengths around so in Singapore Changi Airport you had 4000 ft/13,123 m. I've left the user a note saying not to do it again but keep a watch out. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Metric

Why are imperial units given first preference over metric? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.147.22.210 (talk) 04:09, 26 October 2006

As per the manual of style they should be changed over so metric is first then Imperial/U.S. customery units second. I will change the template over now.--Clawed 08:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I think there needs to be a bit more discussion on this and that it should be more by common usage. I used the AIP AD supplements to check several countries (not all) and found the following. The majority of countries appear to use metres for the runway length, except of course Canada and the US, so that's not a problem. However, it seems to me that the majority of countries, including metric using ones like France, Germany, Norway, Australia, UK, Denmark and New Zealand, all give the elevations in feet. Exceptions to this are Slovenia and China which both use metres for elevation, except for Hong Kong which uses feet. I have not been able to find much in the way of AIP's for Asia, India lists the airports in feet for both elevation and runways here but those are not the ICAO publications. Also at this time both icao.int and icao.org are not working so I was unable to see if they had any regulations set down. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say that US customary units should be given priority over metric for airports US, Canada and all Carribean countries, including Mexico, as stated in Imperial units#Measures of length. For all other countries, with the possible exception of Australia — do they use metric or imperial, officially or commonly? — there should be a metric version. I don't see it being feasibly possible, at least for the time being, to offer seperate templates for countries that mix both units of measurement.
My proposal would be to move the current template from {{Airport frame}} to {{Airport frame imp}}, as well as all templates it links to, except {{Airport title}} and {{Airport end frame}}. We would create redirects, of course, to keep existing in-use infoboxes from breaking. We could then copy the template with only minor adjustments as {{Airport frame met}}. This would allow us to go through the current Special:Whattranscludeshere/Airport frame and change them over as required. Later, we could create country-specific templates, if we really needed to.
Of course, I'd be willing to do the dirty work of shifting the templates over and/or running through the transclusion list with AWB. thadius856talk 20:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's a good idea. If you look at United States the country infobox uses metric first. Also I think this has to be based on ICAO standards (if it can be found). Officially Canada is a metric country but the CFS and charts are all in imperial units. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps United States lists metric first, but that's only logical. Most people looking up that article are likely to be non-Americans, and hence, more likely to be used to metric units. However, those looking up United States airports are likely to be Americans, and conversely those looking up Singapore Changi Airport to be from Singapore and used to metric, for example. Does my resoning make sense? thadius856talk 02:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it comes down to do we use one standard for all airports or different ones based on the usage in that country. If the first then "elevations - feet" and "runways - metric". If the second then we would need only three templates. The current metric one we have now, a second with feet first for both measurements and a third with feet first for elevations and meters first for runways. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Change to {{Runway}}?

I just noticed that the template was changed to metric first, only a few minutes ago. The reasoning in the edit summary is "per WP:MOSNUM". I thought we were still discussing this? I frown upon such BOLD reckless unilateral changes and I'd love to revert, but that would only by hypocracy. thadius856talk 21:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason at all to change to metric first, or imperial first. Lets just leave it at whatever was used originally. It's a non-issue. Ta/wangi 21:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a few minutes ago but on the 5 November both the Template:Runway and Template:Airport infobox were changed to metric. In fact Clawed announced that he was doing that above. I've also changed the infobx template back for now. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Just noticed that Template:Runway title this had also been changed. I changed it back because with it being that way the runways list meters first but the actual measurment is feet. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Info boxes on USAF bases

Here's why I support and pursue the removal of the "serves" category on the USAF bases airport infoboxes: AF bases do not "serve" their nearest towns in the way municipal or large airports do. Apart from the fact that there is no scheduled passenger service into/out of AF bases (Space-A/rotators do not count for many reasons), the denizens of towns nearest to bases are not able to walk on to base and use the services of the airfield. AF bases are not there to serve the nearest town the way civilian airfields are. For this reason I believe there should be a separate infobox template for AF bases, or simply remove the "serves" line from the current template. Conn, Kit 18:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Airport statistics template

I have recently looked at some of the big airports. I was hoping to find an infobox on airport statistics (passengers/take offs etc.).I like the detailed runway information but I think that a lot of Wikipedia users are also keen to find some statistic data. By looking through the history of the template I found that the statistics were removed in 16. April 2005. In the talk page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Infobox/Archive2 a statistics template was suggested. Have there been any activities I have missed ? Inwind 18:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Not that I've seen in the last couple of months. Which statistics were you looking to have? Passenger traffic? Number of flights? thadius856talk|airports|neutrality 19:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Google earth

I made this edit today based on the fact that in {{coor at dms|40|21|15.84|N|79|55|48.6|W|type:airport}} the coordinates show up both in the infobox and the top of the page, link to the same place and it looks ugly. I left a note for User:Paschmitts and he replied here. After reading his external link I wonder if it might not be a good idea to change the template to reflect this. People are going to want it and will keep adding it either in the infobox or elsewhere in the article. If we agree then perhaps one of the bots could update all the articles. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure my bot could do what you're asking, if I knew exactly what you were proposing and once consensus has been reached. Are you suggesting that we should change all {{coor dms}} templates in the infoboxes to {{coor at dms}}, or the other way around? (Or something else completely?). —Mets501 (talk) 16:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for not explaining that better, I was at the end of the shift and trying to get it done befor I went home. Yes, if consensus is reached, then I am suggesting that the {{coor dms}} templates in the infoboxes to {{coor at dms}}. Since I wrote the above I've gone home and had a chance to see how it works using Google Earth#Wikipedia and Panoramio mashup. I found it to be interesting enough to put aside my dislike of the duplication of the coordinate link in the top right hand corner. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can swallow my dislike for the repetitiveness of having the link in two places, even though I do like the Google Earth software. It's exactly the same reason why I went on a spree a month or two ago, chopping out all {{geolinks}} I could find with extreme prejudice, reformatting them into the {{coor dms}} format. thadius856talk|airports|neutrality 21:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
This Google Earth FAQ says "Additionally, Google supports references to the {{coor dms}}, {{coor title dms}} or {{coor at dms}} templates within an Infobox template, so long as it is keyed by either coordinates or coords keywords." However this infobox does not include the word Infobox so I don't know if GE will find the coordinates. Maybe the way to avoid duplicate coordinates is to only use {{coor title dms}} and omit them from the infobox. – Paschmitts 02:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture

When the source image is less than 200px, the quality suck. Check Liège Airport for an example. 139.165.36.37 13:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I added a width parameter to deal with this issue back in September of 2006 (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Infobox/Archive3#Image size in Template: Airport image). I've updated the Liège Airport article to fix the problem by replacing:
{{Airport image|airport_image=liege airport logo.gif}}
with:
{{Airport image|airport_image=liege airport logo.gif|width=173}}
Zyxw 12:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Airport websites in infobox?

I was thinking it would be a good idea to have a link to the airport's official website in the infobox, but figured I'd post here before making adjustments. –Crashintome4196 06:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox broken by recently added image and caption parameters

{{Airport frame}}
{{Airport title|name=XYZ Airport}}
|-
| style="text-align:center" colspan="4"|{{{image|}}}
{{{caption|}}}
|-
!align="center" colspan="4"|<small>[[IATA airport code|IATA]]: {{{IATA}}} - [[ICAO airport code|ICAO]]: {{{ICAO}}}</small>
|-
!colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Summary
|-
!colspan="2" align="left" valign="top"|<small>Airport type</small>
|colspan="2" valign="top"|<small>{{{type}}}</small>
|-
!colspan="2" align="left" valign="top"|<small>Operator</small>
|colspan="2" valign="top"|<small>{{{run by}}}</small>
|-
!colspan="2" align="left" valign="top"|<small>Serves</small>
|colspan="2" valign="top"|<small>[[{{{closest town}}}]]</small>
|-
!colspan="2" align="left" valign="top"|<small>Elevation [[Above mean sea level|AMSL]]</small>
|colspan="2" valign="top"|<small>{{{elevation_ft}}} [[foot (unit of length)|ft]] ({{{elevation_m}}} [[metre|m]])</small>
|-
!colspan="2" align="left" valign="top"|<small>[[Geographic coordinate system|Coordinates]]</small>
|colspan="2" valign="top"|<small>{{{coordinates}}}</small>
{{Airport end frame}}

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but the airport infobox display has been somewhat broken since 4 February 2007, when another user added image and caption parameters to Template:Airport infobox. These parameters can be seen in use by viewing the article RAF Linton-on-Ouse (external link to version in history). The way this was added caused an extra empty row to be displayed in all airport infoboxes not using those parameters, as shown below the title bar of the infobox to the right.

I suppose this will start a discussion about whether the image and caption parameters should be removed from Template:Airport infobox, since the current standard (as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/Infobox) is to use Template:Airport image. For now, I have fixed the problem by using the #if parser function, as already used for Airport type: {{{type}}}, Operator: {{{run by}}} and Serves: {{{closest town}}}. -- Zyxw 20:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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