The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. BJ^Talk 03:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alsek Air Service[edit]

Declined A7, as talkpage challenge was convincing enough to take to AFD for the community to decide. The article appears to fail WP:CORP. SchuminWeb (Talk) 09:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 09:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 09:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 09:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, the company in question provides scheduled public transport services with government grants, making it inherently notable. Further, a search with Google News finds multiple articles on the airline, so it is notable per WP:CORP. Arsenikk ^(talk) 09:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Google news search, in reality ([1]), turns up one result. Neither WP:CORP nor WP:ORG says anything about inherent notability emanating from government grants. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Here [2] is another small town Alaska transportation company. They receive government grant money to transport disabled people around through [3]this organization, they have about the same seating capacity as this airline, but they use cars not airplanes. Are they notable? No. Is this tiny small town airline with not one reliable source related to it notable? No. Extended discussion on the subject here. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Merge to an article about little alaskan airlines. Pasting from my talk page:

I suppose I believe that public scheduled air service is inherently notable. From that, I believe that any such Alaskan airline that provides such a service, especially essential air service, is worthy of its own article. See Bering Air, Frontier Flying Service, Hageland Aviation Services, Isla Nena Air, Island Air Service, Servant Air, Taquan Air, Warbelow's Air Ventures, and Wings of Alaska, for other examples.

It will likely be that every little public airport in Alaska eventually gets an article, and it's well on its way: see List of airports in Alaska. These airlines serve to connect those dots.

Put another way, I believe the red links on Template:Airlines of the United States and Essential Air Service should be made as articles. I do NOT, however, believe that the hundreds of charter airlines should get their own article.

Given the AFD on Alaska Seaplane Service, I believe I'm in the majority in thinking these little airlines should be kept, but perhaps those more knowledgeable of Wikipedia Policy can argue the case better than I.

Allstar86 (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment I note that what appear to be new sources have been added to the article, but upon examination of those sources, they are clearly well below the threshold of "significant coverage". Brining up other AfDs again and again is a WP:WAX argument, generally not considered valid reasoning. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note I have initiated a discussion of the wider issues involved here in order to form a consensus on these issues. Any and all input is welcome. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as an Essential Air Service provider. This is in effect recognition by the federal government that the airline provides an essential service, or for me notability. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please elaborate as to why this designation confers automatic notability? Beeblebrox (talk) 01:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- As for "essential", In any case, it has not yet started operations as such. But one takes essential in such a designation as government-talk, not necessarily encyclopedic notability. If Alaska is so disperse that many of its air services are of trivial size, then they are not notable. DGG (talk) 02:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Any airline which offers scheduled commercial service is notable, and most of them have Wikipedia articles. Just look at any airport article with scheduled service and you'll find links to airline articles as part of the "Airlines and destinations" section. Airlines serving Alaska has always been a weak point due to many without articles. Thankfully a number of these articles have been started recently. Also notable is that Alsek Air Service was selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation "to provide Essential Air Service (EAS) at Cape Yakataga and Icy Bay, Alaska, at an annual subsidy rate of $78,000" (see [4]). I see no valid reason for this article to be deleted. -- Zyxw (talk)

Comment: In response to the two prior comments referring to Essential Air Service as a "designation", note that all airlines in the EAS program receive a subsidy from the U.S. Department of Transportation. In 2007 those subsidies totaled $114 million. -- Zyxw (talk) 14:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't argue that the program itself isn't notable, but there are thousands of organizations in Alaska that receive some sort of government contract or government funding and I don't think receiving such funds automatically makes an organization notable, (see my above remark on the taxi company) and I certainly can't find any Wikipedia guideline or policy that would substantiate such a claim. This airline simply fails to meet the general notability guideline as there is no significant coverage of it anywhere. Are we going to give an article to everyone who gets food stamps because the food stamp program is notable? Beeblebrox (talk) 15:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment We had a similar discussion a few weeks earlier: Alaska Seaplane Service, where I commented. So, I am curious if anyone would find it prudent to have a more overarching article that is clearly notable? It appears that we have general agreement that Alaskan air transportation is unique, and (perhaps?) notable. We also have a collection of articles (see above list compiled by AllStar86), which are contentiously notable. Would anyone be willing to research a concise history of Alaskan air transportation (perhaps starting here), discussing its development and impact upon the market. We could merge these mini-articles into the larger article that examines the subject within a broader context. Just an idea. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, this idea was mentioned over at FAC talk by Tony1, in context of "short articles" there; small cyclone articles at FA were the subject. He argued that instead of evaluating large amounts of small articles on cyclones, we focus effort on producing excellent, substantial content that analysed the subjects as part of a phenomenon. I think his argument translates here: perhaps these airlines would be best served within a larger framework. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This carrier doesn't have any data reported to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics in Form 41, Schedule T100. I don't know if that's because they're too small, or because they aren't a scheduled air carrier and they don't have to report passenger traffic. They appear to be a really small piece of Alaska's transportation network. I'm leaning toward deleting this article because there's no indication of how much traffic it carries. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 16:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that several of the the above votes were WP:CANVASSed. [5] Beeblebrox (talk) 16:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless all are welcome to participate in the discussion about what to do with these articles that I have initiated here. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The so-called "canvassing" referred to above was actually a "friendly notice" I left on the talk pages of five users who participated in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alaska Seaplane Service (nominated after Beeblebrox added a speedy deletion request to the article), which resulted in six votes to keep and none to delete. If you read Wikipedia:Canvassing, it says: "under certain conditions it is acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions ... neutrally worded notifications sent to a small number of editors are considered "friendly notices" if they are intended to improve rather than to influence a discussion ... for example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion". My message met all the criteria and was worded similarly the suggested ((Please see)) template. Finally, note while I voted to keep this article, one of the people I notified is leaning toward deleting it while another suggested merging it into a larger article about airlines in Alaska. -- Zyxw (talk) 18:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It probably makes sense to regard all airlines as notable, in the same way that we regard all members of national or provincial/state parliaments as notable. -- Eastmain (talk) 19:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really guys, I'm not trying to be a dick or to filibuster this debate, but that is an "apples and oranges" type argument if I have ever heard one. Perhaps there is some way to cover all these tiny air taxis (I don't think "airline" is even the right word for a lot of these) in a parent article, but here are the same arguments as at the last article, based on feeling rather than fact. I just don't see how a guy with 2 small planes is more notable than a guy with 2 ten passenger vans or two skiffs providing essentially the same service in the same areas. I don't mean to shove my Alaska-ness in everyone's face but I can assure you these little outfits exist in the hundreds up here, and most Alaskans would probably laugh at the suggestion that they are all inherently notable. It's like saying the local Pizza Hut delivery driver or the mailman is inherently notable. Their overall line of work may be notable, but the individual local outfits really aren't. By the way, those "essential air service" contracts probably are for carrying the mail to small villages. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.