Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Vietnam Airlines destinations

List of Vietnam Airlines destinations

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Fails WP:NOT, WP:NCORP.

Specifically this is a catalogue of the services of a company and as such is excluded under WP:NOTCATALOG no. 6 which states that "Listings to be avoided include [...] products and services". This is essentially an article entirely about run-of-the-mill announcements about services from a company, the equivalent of an article trying to list the locations of all Burger Kings or Pizza Huts. Any information that is not simply run-of-the-mill is already included at the Vietnam Airlines article.

Other headings under WP:NOT that are failed include WP:NOTTRIVIA (since this is a listing of rapidly-changing temporary company services that can change on a scale of days/weeks), WP:IINFO (since this is an indiscriminate effort to provide a complete listing of all services offered by a company regardless of significance, instead of summarising them), WP:PROMO (since this is effectively an advert for the company's services based on sources controlled ultimately by the company), WP:NOR (since this is the compiling of a list of company services to state things not stated in the original sources - for example that services to Russia are terminated now because they were suspended in 2022, or that services to Tegel were previously operated when the source only says that Tegel is now shut, and more broadly that all of these services are operating now when the sources are only true for the date they were published), WP:NOTGUIDE (since this is effectively a travel guide), WP:NOTNEWS (since this appears to be an attempt to create a list of up-to-the-minute services offered by the company), and WP:CRYSTAL (since nearly every announcement used discusses plans to start doing something in the future, and since dates in the future are included - for example announcements for October 2024).

WP:NCORP is also failed. Most of the listings here are unsourced, and realistically cannot be sourced from anywhere but the company website, press-releases, company spokespeople, or other sources controlled by the company, meaning that it automatically fails WP:ORGIND, because this information cannot be obtained from a source independent of the company.

That this is true can be seen from the sources provided in the article. Going through these one-by-one we get:

The Vietnam Airlines website
A Saigon Times article about a government announcement about restructuring of the airline that does not mention any destinations
A profile in industry-press based entirely on information from the airline
The Vietnam Airlines website
An industry-press article based on a company press-release
A local news story based on a company press-release
A link to the Berlin airport website saying that Tegel airport has been shut down - the conclusion that Vietnam airlines ever flew here is not supported and basically OR
An announcement about future plans in industry press, with comments from the CEO of Munich airport who are obviously also not independent of the airline as they are a business-partner of theirs
An announcement in government-controlled press about flights to India, since Vietnam Airlines is state-owned and managed by a board appointed by the government this is not independent
Announcements from the company about future plans relayed via Aeroroutes, which is a blog/industry press, and also not significant coverage since it so short
Another Aeroroutes link regarding future plans
A short Reuters piece about flights to Moscow being suspended in 2022 based on an announcement in Vietnamese state-owned press - not significant coverage of the topic of the destinations since it is so short and is anyway not reliably and independently sourced. Additionally this does not support the statement that flights are terminated now in 2024 so this is OR.
Another brief Aeroroutes link about future plans
A Condé Nast travel-magazine article based on a statement from the Vietnam Airlines CEO. Whilst other sources are also quoted in the article, all of these sources ultimately track back to Vietnam Airlines - the Airline Geeks article (industry press/blog) is sourced to a company press release, the Vietnam+ article is sourced to statements by the CEO, the Twitter source is from Vietnam Airlines Twitter account. There is no independent reporting here.

As a list split from a larger article, this still needs to have stand-alone notability per WP:AVOIDSPLIT, but it clearly does not since it fails the relevant notability guide for company products and services (WP:NCORP). FOARP (talk) 10:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Business, Travel and tourism, Transportation, and Vietnam. FOARP (talk) 10:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 10:52, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 00:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the numerous WP:NOT violations listed by nom. Rosbif73 (talk) 06:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep You're making things up:
- WP:NOTCATALOG says we are not "A resource for conducting business" with significant context and other examples indicating that products and services shouldn't be listed as a way to sell them. This is not a catalogue with the time of day these flights depart and what planes they use. To suggest we cannot provide a list like this with an overly broad reading of that would call for the deletion of all of Category:Lists of products.
- WP:NOTTRIVIA says nothing about "temporary services". Where an airline flies is not "rapidly-changing". Sure it can change, but it's not that frequent or difficult to understand. We do not have any prohibition on content that can change or be updated, and that's the beauty of a wiki that we can do so. Articles are not expected to be static. As I say below, there may be possibilities for reform rather than complete deletion.
- This is not indiscriminate. It's clearly defined as places the airline flies or has flown. It's not overly broad or difficult to define.
- It's not an advertisement and it's patently ridiculous to call this promotional. It's perfectly appropriate to provide a straightforward list of a company's services. Is it a promotional advertisement to list a movie studio's films, a gaming company's products, a brand's flavors, or a train's routes?
- This is not original research. Indeed, it's poorly sourced, but it's not full of things for which sources are impossible to find or that reach a synthesized conclusion. Sure, the citations for Russia is bad, but this and this are substantive articles about about the flights between Vietnam and Russia, including Vietnam Airlines' route.
- This is not a travel guide any more than List of Amtrak routes is a travel guide. It does not tell people about how to contact the company or to make a booking, describe the costs and the airline's booking structures, review the seats and flying experience, or give what time of day the flights leave. It's misguided and undercuts your argument to call a simple list of destinations a travel guide.
- This is not news. It's not original reporting, a routine report about an event only relevant the day it happened or written in news style, or a who's who. This is not something that changes day-in, day-out. It is not "up-to-the-minute" any more than List of Amtrak routes. Hey, the Chicago – St. Paul route just opened on May 21, is this bad to be "up-to-the-minute"? Why would it be a bad thing to be current? This is not something changing so much that editors are unable to keep up and have let it fester with outdated content either. Being cited to news is standard and does not make the list itself news.
- This is not a crystal ball. It is not forbidden to describe something planned for the future. Saying the route is scheduled to start in October is neither speculation, a rumor, a presumption, nor a prediction. It is easily verifiable, and it's embarassing and weakens your argument to say the article must be deleted because it states a simple, sourced statement about something planned.
- NCORP is not relevant. Vietnam Airlines is a notable corporation and this is about them and what they do, and this is an appropriate subarticle of the main topic. Being unsourced or poorly sourced is a cleanup issue, not necessarily grounds for deletion.
- You make the poor comparison to listing Burger King locations. No, we don't need to list the 19,000 stores they have, but we do have Burger King products and List of Burger King products. Selling the products is the service they provide, and taking passengers to these airports is the service Vietnam Airlines provides. Maybe a simple table like this isn't the best way to present the information, but it's not inherently disallowed to have this content.

I agree there are issues with these lists, namely that they list destinations rather than routes. It could be more informative to say that they operate routes from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney, and between Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok, rather than simply that Sydney and Bangkok are destinations. There are other ways this could be restructured or merged, which is why the proposed RFC could be helpful, but I do not believe this violates NOT whatsoever. Reywas92^Talk 13:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of Amtrak routes is a bad comparison - those are railway routes requiring permanent infrastructure to be built and maintained. An airline can schedule and re-scheduled from day to day and as such are ephemeral trivia.

NCORP is entirely relevant since it applies to goods and services of companies just as much as it does to companies (it literally says this in the first line: "This page is to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its products and services, is a valid subject for a separate Wikipedia article dedicated solely to that organization, product, or service"). The goods and services of a company do not inherit the notability of their parent company per WP:INHERIT, and a split-list has to has stand-alone notability per WP:AVOIDSPLIT. Every single source comes ultimately from the company itself which is exactly what WP:ORGIND is there to prevent.

Obviously I disagree with you other points but I doubt I'm going to change your mind on them, suffice it to say that a list of all the services of a company obviously falls in to what WP:CATALOG no.6 tells us not to include ("Listings to be avoided include [...] products and services") and reading WP:NOT any other way requires reading it to meaning something opposite to what it clearly states.

The examples you cite have a very straight-forward rejoinder: "What about X?".

I don't get how you can repeatedly admit that this is badly-sourced, not produce any examples of independent, 3rd-party coverage to fix that (Aviationweek is industry press and their article is based on a press-release, the VN Express article is also based on a press-release, and anyway only mentions the airline briefly), and then still conclude that the article should be kept. FOARP (talk) 14:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just because air routes can be rescheduled doesn't mean they are actually from day to day. Many international routes require regulatory approval, and it's not insignificant for a destination to be served as routes are important for business and tourist connectivity beyond just being a product on the shelves. Calling this "ephemeral" is nonsense. Amtrak does not even maintain most of its own track infrastructure, and it can also change what routes it provides and stations it stops at; how about List of Metrobus routes in Washington, D.C.? Again, editors are perfectly capable of tracking this because it does not in fact change on a daily basis. Flight frequency and timing details are more ephemeral, but we're not saying which routes are daily or biweekly.

If you don't think the split list has stand-alone notability, then I would recommend a merge and possible restructure. But I don't think this content needs to be separately notable when Vietnam Airlines is already notable and this is complimentary. It's disingenuous to dismiss sources that say "X airline flies to Y airport" – a very straighforward fact – as not being independent because the airline has also stated this, particularly if you're connecting anything from government-owned news to the airline.

Again, this is obviously not "A resource for conducting business" and it's ridiculous to suggest something this general without details about the flights themselves or the cabin experience is a forbidden catalogue; the airline is not using this to sell tickets. You are taking this out of context and reading this the opposite way, because it's no more forbidden to say "Vietnam Airlines flies passengers to Tokyo and San Francisco" than it is to say "Apple sells iPhones and MacBooks".

Some other sources include [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. I didn't search in Vietnamese. Reywas92^Talk 17:17, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any significant coverage of the topic of a List of Vietnam Airlines destinations from a source that would meet WP:ORGIND in those articles. The SMH article mentions the destinations of Vietnam Airlines exactly once, in a quote from a travel agent (“I’ve been able to find great prices with Vietnam Airlines into Paris or Frankfurt going via Ho Chi Minh City, so clients have opted to take a three or four night stopovers in Vietnam after holidaying in Europe.”). The Vietnam Investment Review piece is industry press based on a company statement. OAG is industry press and the piece doesn't even mention ANY destinations of Vietnam Airlines. I'm not bothering to go through the others here because it looks like a WP:REFBOMB - can you please say which of these you think is actually significant coverage of the specific topic under discussion here? FOARP (talk) 07:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – Linking previous nominations involving this page:

–24 October 2015– Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pages in Category:Lists of airline destinations;

–26 March 2024– Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of British Airways destinations. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 22:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I completely agree with everything Reywas92 has posted here. I understand "per X" AfD !votes are frowned upon, but that was comprehensive enough that I don't really have anything else additional to add. SportingFlyer T·C 11:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. For the current destinations, this is essentially Vietnam Airlines' route map converted into a list. Our job is not to store schedule data that's already available on other websites like the airline's or FlightConnections.com. In addition listing every terminated destination runs contrary to WP:IINFO. 'Indiscriminate' can be defined as "lacking in care, judgment, selectivity, etc." In my view there is no careful judgment involved in creating a list of every single place that Vietnam Airlines has flown to in its 70-year history. I don't see the need to record that the carrier at one point flew to some random city that appears on its route map from 1964. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:58, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]