Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

Interesting topic, I was on simpleflying this morning and I noticed that a couple of the topics were, how to put this, they seemed to be made up of various bits of info posted on here from threads that were in discussion last month, so, I would say yes to them.

The points guy has always been accurate with what I have seen, though the videos from the points guy UK can get annoying.

Onemileatatime I've never used.

As already mentioned, SimpleFlying has stood out in the past for the amount of mistakes their articles contain, those ranging from factual to grammatical errors.

Ooh, this is going to get some posts.

Those sources aren't Reuters/Wall Street Journal/New York Times (or their Western European or Japanese equivalents). It's not business reporting. Look to Leeham, or CAPA (I qualify my support), or Aviation Week if you want something more than general business reporting.

I'll trust thepointsguy for a reasonable report of how a carrier's frequent flyer program has changed. Some of those elements are objective and can readily be compared to a competitor's program, like fees for changes to booked saver award tickets. Easy. Factual. Thepointsguy and onemileatatime spend a lot of time on subjective issues, as with rating experience on a single flight, or how hard it is to redeem miles. Your mileage may vary. Think about their data sets and the techniques they bring to the task before you accept them as authoritative.

You can look for journalistic standards (multiplicity of sources, thorough fact checking, acknowledging errors plainly) and author qualifications. 'He's loved travel since he was two!' is a great expression of enduring enthusiasm but not a qualification to write.

Thank god someone brought this up. I think there even worst then Airways Magazine website.
There new is "news" but a lot of the stuff the write is absolutely nonsense; clickbait. Its just stupid, like a child that needs attention.
It unfortunate that so many aviation news sited and magazine have become worse during the past 5-6 years.
At least this site has just got better!

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

SimpleFlying is a meme. It’s the aviation industry equivalent of buzzfeed.

TPG > OneMileataTime>..........>Simple Flying

I'm on One Mile at a Time everyday, and it's by far the best airline-related blog. Ben (the guy who runs the blog) is a great writer, funny, and always super accurate on everything. The site is super easy to navigate, and it's not annoying at all, unlike TPG. I'm not a fun of TPG or Simply Flying. As Pudelhund says, Simply Flying is like the Buzzfeed of aviation, but I'd also put TPG in the same category. The one person who's not annoying on TPG is Zach Honig, whereas everyone else dumbs everything down, which is unnecessary, imho.

Sorry, but do we have had this discussion not already x-times?

These are good, to get an update/overview, what is going on.
And then search for reliable sources.

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

They are unreliable, having no demonstrated links with actual grass routes sources. I actually suspect one of them to be spreading misinformation.

zeke wrote:

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

They are unreliable, having no demonstrated links with actual grass routes sources. I actually suspect one of them to be spreading misinformation.

That’s the impression I get, they don’t have any other sources other than what airlines already release in their press releases. So in essence they seem to just regurgitate info

Interesting responses, I’ve always wondered what other people thought about those websites.

I sometimes read simply flying, and their articles seem to begin with “first reported here” when it’s already covered in the news or the airline has released something that day so to day they are the first to report it seems a bit much

Delta trusts TPG enough to put their award logo on their airplanes.

Generally yes, but like all airline travel sites check for opinion versus sourced and cited news. Also, some moderators on a site the thread starter named (I won't say which one) delete posts that they politically disagree with, but allow those they do, including the occasional political insult. That's the thing that I don't like - I want to read travel news, not political diatribes. I'm not saying it happens all of the time, but it does happen. Your mileage may vary.

One Mile at a Time is a very good resource for the trip reports - Ben does a pretty solid job at remaining neutral when showcasing airlines and hotels, and I've heavily used his trip reports in making decisions as to hotels and airlines to book. I've met Ben on a number of occasions and have gotten along perfectly well with him when I've interacted with him in person. News-wise, Ben doesn't really break any major stories - I can think of only one that he broke that had a major impact in regards to the industry.

TPG - again, their trip reports are normally pretty solid (though I do prefer Ben's for having a much superior depth of detail). Brian Kelly (again, I've met him several times in person and he's a good guy) has done a good job in expanding the talent stables there. Scott Mayerowitz, Ben Mutzabaugh and Edward Russell are very big names from mainstream sources (Scott from the AP, Ben from USA Today, Edward from FlightGlobal) which has really boosted their credibility when it comes to news reporting. While I feel that TPG still pushes credit cards way too much, their news division has taken a huge leap forward. Any article on TPG with a byline from any of those three gentlemen should be regarded as trustworthy and credible. I give Brian a lot of props from really stepping up and investing in their news division in the past year by investing in some of the biggest names in the airline news industry.

SimplyFlying I simply do not give the time or day to. They just want to throw stuff out to be first, rather than get the story completely right.

kimimm19 wrote:

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

That is the truth. In another life I worked in Talk Radio. Nothing huge. But we'd get all the same press releases and "requests for interviews" like everyone else. It always amazed me how lazy modern journalism is in most cases and how most of what is out there is just a re-spin of a press release with very little true journalism. Once you've been in the industry, you can tell headlines that are stories that are regurgitation of press releases pretty easy.

I visit both OMAAT and The Points Guy daily and find One Mile to be more comprehensive, in depth, less salesly, but could use a refresh. The Points Guy is usually pretty decent when it comes to points. Their airline reviews are highly subjective and sometimes come across as amateur. Simple Flying is plainly inaccurate, poorly written, and lacks depth, and I would not even consider them in the same category. Airline Geeks is pretty good too. Cranky Flyer is fun to read.

I feel like all the points guy does is push credit cards. I can't take that site seriously at all. As for the others they are very "meh" in my book. I honestly come here most for my aviation news. As others have mentioned those three are all clickbait. Airways is also a hot mess. They have never been the same since they were taken over probably 7 years ago now.

I think the best out there is Jon Ostrower. He has his own site that posts great info but is too pricey for me. I think it's roughly $200/year. But simply following his twitter account is a great source of info.

Cranky Flier is another decent source of airline related news. His daily email newsletter is great.

Of those three One Mile At A Time is the best. TPG is okay but their focus is more about credit card sign ups and FF programs so I would not go there looking for any real aviation news that isn't primarily about points and credit cards.

Cyrus wrote:

At least this site has just got better!

Looking at the rest of your post:

Cyrus wrote:

Thank god someone brought this up. I think there even worst then Airways Magazine website.
There new is "news" but a lot of the stuff the write is absolutely nonsense; clickbait. Its just stupid, like a child that needs attention.
It unfortunate that so many aviation news sited and magazine have become worse during the past 5-6 years.
At least this site has just got better!

Better indeed.

Reliable in what sense?
In terms of trip reports:

If you're looking for comprehensive reviews on J or F products, IMO Onemileatatime is the way to go.

Ben doesn't fly Y, so if you're looking for economy trip reports, TPG is an option.

Also, I'm fairly certain many of Ben's aviation news-related posts are direct summaries of the discussion points within these forums, so his information is probably as reliable as anything you'll read on here.

If we are to discuss credibility we need to consider the purpose of the websites.

Both TPG and One mile at a time started out as websites that focused on how to maximise values from Frequent Flyer Programs. While a lot of flyers discuss that on forums, they packaged it into a easy format and monetised it. Good on them, I don't have any complaints with those websites.
TPG writes about how to earn points and provide suggestions. They aren't objective fact-checkers or pretending to be impartial analysts. Personally I only check the Pointsguy UK, since his geographical focus is more of interest to me, and he delivers what he says his website is about, Frequent Flyer news. I might not agree with some of his reviews, but reviews are subjective and he isnt pertaining to present an absolute truth.

One mile at a time I visit once per year so I dont have depth or knowledge about their site, but they few times I have read anything from there it seems similar to TPG, a bit lighter but similar.

Simpleflying is different. Rewrites of snippets picked up elsewhere and I assume its just a website kept to keep a steady income (read hit count). The depth is poor and it is not a site for me.

My biggest issue with websites are those claiming objective analysis capability, then providing analysis that don't meet basic validity and reliability tests. Their perception is of a site providing real analysis, bu when you crosscheck facts and assumptions you realise thats not happened, instead a descriptive narrative is presented.
See CAPA for example. Their public analysis is weak and statements such as 'we employ highly experienced analysts' are dubious when you know the CV of some of those presented.

Leeham is different, that's journalists that write about a topic they are passionate about. They are good journalists and their stories are written to inform the reader, they like all journalists are sometimes wrong and thats fine. They dont claim to be objective analysts, the main man is referred to as an editor, which is very appropriate and does not deceive any readers.

kimimm19 wrote:

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

In "normal journalism," there is a daily "story meeting" when the editor says what he or she wants in the paper tomorrow and the next day. It is then the reporters' job to fill in the content that the editor instructed them to write (to satisfy the editor's desires or ambitions).

In blogging, the meeting is between the blogger and his/her promotion clients. Let's say that client is Altria. Then, the blogger would be talking about the amazing Altria product, in exchange for cash payment from Altria.

jetwet1 wrote:

Interesting topic, I was on simpleflying this morning and I noticed that a couple of the topics were, how to put this, they seemed to be made up of various bits of info posted on here from threads that were in discussion last month, so, I would say yes to them.

It could be that, or it could be they read a lot of social media sources (us, other forums, lots and lots of twitter feeds, etc) and stitch together stories.

The thing you don't see is much original information or thought.

Interesting article at https://curator.io/blog/how-to-create-a ... you-should on content aggregators:

It is common for people to confuse content aggregation with plagiarism. The two are however very different. Plagiarism involves the use of other peoples content without permission while content aggregation involves the use of content from various online platforms while giving due credit to the owner.

This is in essence what these web sites are about. They're a step above pure aggregators because they they put some of their own words around the content they scrape from source web sites rather than just being a link farm, but that's about it. They usually are careful about "giving due credit" to the actual source web site. Yet they themselves are rarely if ever the primary source of content. They don't go out and interview the news sources, they just scrape up what others people have found out by going out and interviewing the news sources. They try to sound professional by saying things "We have discovered" which really means "We found a tweet" or "We read an interesting forum thread" or "We read someone's blog" or "We listened to someone's podcast".

In reality, this is where most "journalism" is going. Most TV news pieces have at least one tweet as their main source, if not more. It's far easier for news organizations to have rooms of interns (unpaid, poorly paid, or even paying for the experience!) gathering up bundles of tweets rather than sending them out to actually interview people. The news sources tend to prefer to push out their own point of view via tweets rather than being interviewed, so everyone "wins".

This is even more pronounced in the sports world. One bit of news released by "journalist X" immediately gets countless tweets from other "journalists" about the same news item that say "According to X,...". As long as the "due credit" standard is maintained, it all passes muster these days.

There's always unintended victims in every big tech transition, and old school media is one casualty of the Internet Era.

I don't follow Simply Flying on Twitter nor do I visit their web site unless a Google search happens to take me there. I will say they almost always give a link to their sources, so they do seem to be meeting the "due credit" standard, but I don't find their reporting all that compelling.

Maybe we should be more positive, and start a Twitter thread where we post Twitter handles of sources we find to deliver original and news-worthy aviation content?

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

Don’t forget Avherald. Thumbs down.

SuseJ772 wrote:

kimimm19 wrote:

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

That is the truth. In another life I worked in Talk Radio. Nothing huge. But we'd get all the same press releases and "requests for interviews" like everyone else. It always amazed me how lazy modern journalism is in most cases and how most of what is out there is just a re-spin of a press release with very little true journalism. Once you've been in the industry, you can tell headlines that are stories that are regurgitation of press releases pretty easy.

Putting a spin on something is one thing, but making factual errors, or "presenting alternative facts" as it's called nowadays, has no business in professional journalism. We can argue about our favorite livery all day but 20 A320 =/= 17 MD-11.

One Mile At A Time, every time.
The Points Guy USED to be fantastic, and there is still some useful info there, but in the past 2-3 years, they've become complete sell outs. They even pulled an article that was critical of one of their sponsors, and the author of that article no longer participates in the website. To me, that's the height of untrustworthy. If a reviewer says something negative and you pull their review, then you've got about as much credibility as CNN of Foxnews at that point.

But OMAAT is now the largest, INDEPENDENT travel blog. So I like to support that.

mxaxai wrote:

Putting a spin on something is one thing, but making factual errors, or "presenting alternative facts" as it's called nowadays, has no business in professional journalism. We can argue about our favorite livery all day but 20 A320 =/= 17 MD-11.

True, some sites have some absolutely glaring mistakes, which should be a dead giveaway that the site is using novices.

On the other hand, I've seen pedantry run amok in many cases where a good journalist gets a relatively minor detail of a major breaking story wrong and people throw the whole story because of it.

For subjective trip reports, OMAAT and TPG can be fun to read. Guess it depends on how you define "reliable."

They're convenient places to start when looking for travel-related news, but just check the sources to confirm for yourself. Certain articles they publish come from social media, some are recycled from other news outlets, TR's are subjective by their very nature.

-KLM11

These are all, to one degree or another, outgrowths from FlyerTalk's mileage runners, and they seem to be, to varying degrees, thinly veiled referral/affiliate sites for travel credit cards. OMAAT is the best, TPG has gotten questionable, and SimpleFlying is freelance travel industry copy that just seems to regurgitate information to get clicks/views.

OMAAT is useful, TPG seems to have people on staff that don't know much about travel or aviation, but sometimes they have interesting stuff.

https://skift.com/2020/08/03/travel-blo ... omes-next/

I found this to be a useful look at some aspects of the TPG and OMAAT question posed.

IMO, They’re quality review sites that are paid via the credit cards they hawk. That sometimes can mean they’ll promote (or soften a harsh trip review) a card/airline that pays them more (not via the airline but via the credit card company). They’re very direct about saying the airlines don’t influence their reviews. They don’t. But the credit card companies that make those airlines profitable do fund them directly so there can be perverse incentives about over-critiquing the hands that feed them.

So long as you know how they’re incentivized, they’re useful sites.

JAMBOJET wrote:

https://skift.com/2020/08/03/travel-blogs-rode-credit-card-referrals-wave-what-comes-next/

I found this to be a useful look at some aspects of the TPG and OMAAT question posed.

IMO, They’re quality review sites that are paid via the credit cards they hawk. That sometimes can mean they’ll promote a card/airline that pays them more (not via the airline but via the credit card company). They’re very direct about saying the airlines don’t influence their reviews. They don’t. But the credit card companies that make those airlines profitable do fund them directly so there can be perverse incentives about over-critiquing the hands that feed them.

So long as you know how they’re incentivized, they’re useful sites.

Second this. If you look past the sales part of OMAAT and TPG, they have useful information and interesting trip reports.

Simpleflying is a bonafide dumpster fire of simplistic fluff and misinformation and I refuse to read them.

kimimm19 wrote:

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

Where did you get your journalism degree? And that big pile of cynicism? There are plenty of objective facts in the world that can be reported accurately.

zeke wrote:

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

They are unreliable, having no demonstrated links with actual grass routes sources. I actually suspect one of them to be spreading misinformation.

It’s not really reasonable to lump them together. Simpleflying seems to be in its own questionable category. One Mile at a Time feels like it’s written by a frequent flier for frequent fliers so easier to accept.

Best Page for aviation news is ch-aviation

CATIIIevery5yrs wrote:

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

Don’t forget Avherald. Thumbs down.

I think avherald is a great website, what makes you give them thumbs down?

"Reliable" for what lol? Most news these days focuses on bias confirmation, not information gathering and distribution.

Our establishment media is now trusted by an astonishingly low number as shown at link below.

It also shows that 86% see bias in the press and this was BEFORE the COVID fiasco.

https://knightfoundation.org/reports/am ... democracy/

They are every bit as "reliable" as "news" organizations still referring to riots that cause hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage as "peaceful protests."

As far as the sites you mention, I think JAMBOJET makes the best point. They are "incentivized." But all that does is make them like any news organization.

Reliable... what a joke.

777luver wrote:

CATIIIevery5yrs wrote:

777luver wrote:

Nothing against these websites but they seem to be the most mentioned on here. How reliable are they? Are they a trustworthy source? What gives them merit and credibility?

Don’t forget Avherald. Thumbs down.

I think avherald is a great website, what makes you give them thumbs down?

A lot of times it seems like they get their story as reported from someone with overall 3rd hand knowledge of the details of an event. I’m used to more formal fact finding before releasing a summary of an event. They do report stuff quick though, so there’s that.

MillwallSean wrote:

See CAPA for example. Their public analysis is weak and statements such as 'we employ highly experienced analysts' are dubious when you know the CV of some of those presented.

Doesn't CAPA have (had?) a bias in favor of LCCs and the ME3 and against FSCs? I remember them being bullish on several airlines that weren't making profits or even never left the ground (such as Odyssey and Fastjet, with the latter being almost dead by now). The impression I got from CAPA is that if their analysis ever involved LCCs, with relatively few exceptions, it would either be optimistic or at worst cautious pessimism, unlike with FSCs where they were generally more negative.

FCRO wrote:

Best Page for aviation news is ch-aviation

In my case the problem with ch-aviation (and I'd probably add aviation news website in general) is that most of their stuff is behind a paywall, which can include news that you simply can't find anywhere else. This is not a problem for most of their target audience (such as industry people or companies) who can afford to pay for such things, but for a relative casual like me with a limited budget who doesn't work in the industry, it makes it difficult to keep up with most of the related news developments, particularly the more niche or under-reported areas, if the information isn't reported elsewhere.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it’s pretty rare that any of the “breaking news” on those sites wasn’t already posted on a.net.

None of these sites seem to have inside sources from any of the airlines, so outside of the weird credit card promotions they run there is very little you will gain from following some of these blogs.

The best airline industry blog imo is Crankyflier, he actually has contacts within airlines, access to airline data, e.t.c. I know many airline employees who follow his blog closely. Flydataguy is good too, and used to work in Network Planning for a while at WN, but I don’t think he blogs often.

MIflyer12 wrote:

kimimm19 wrote:

Is any source providing news really completely factual?

Hint: no, there is always a spin or motive behind it. (you learn this in journalism in the first week).

Where did you get your journalism degree? And that big pile of cynicism? There are plenty of objective facts in the world that can be reported accurately.

Of course they CAN be reported accurately, but they aren't.

CATIIIevery5yrs wrote:

777luver wrote:

CATIIIevery5yrs wrote:

Don’t forget Avherald. Thumbs down.

I think avherald is a great website, what makes you give them thumbs down?

A lot of times it seems like they get their story as reported from someone with overall 3rd hand knowledge of the details of an event. I’m used to more formal fact finding before releasing a summary of an event. They do report stuff quick though, so there’s that.

Isn't that the entire raison d'être of Avherald? They collect, compile and disseminate information from everywhere, including obscure and non-english sources. It is really popular among real world pilots and is almost always used in ground courses when an example is needed.

TPG started out as a guy giving tips on how to collect the most number of points and then convert them into the most number of FF miles, then where to use those miles most efficiently. He was actually a little subversive, in that he was using some of the system's lesser-known features for gain and then telling everyone else how to do so as well. I don't know if he actually did this but he was the *kind* of guy and it was the kind of site that would have told people about buying dollar coins online with your AMEX card to get the points, then depositing them back into your bank account so those points were "free".

I ended up doing some overseas trips on points/miles that I wouldn't have even known how to do if I hadn't found his site.

At some point 2-3 years ago, he changed and his web site changed. It is now basically a credit card promotional site and almost everything on it seems to just be about promotions being run by either the credit card companies or the airlines. I just think it's kind of useless. I would actually think the info is fairly reliable since it seems to all come directly from official press releases he's sent. But it's basically one giant ad.

As for AVherald...

VSMUT wrote:

Isn't that the entire raison d'être of Avherald? They collect, compile and disseminate information from everywhere, including obscure and non-english sources. It is really popular among real world pilots and is almost always used in ground courses when an example is needed.

I think some people just think the site is something it isn't. AFAIK it's basically one guy just culling stories and reporting tips and info other people send him. It's not some sort of official primary source for anything. You're not reading a service of the NTSB or ICAO or whatever. It's just a guy running a private web site as a hobby, more or less.

The site's FAQ does say that he/they require two different sources before posting something, which is pretty standard in journalistic circles. But that doesn't ensure everything is going to be 100% accurate. 100% accuracy is a fallacy for any non-primary source anyway. Two unique secondary sources can still *both* be wrong about something. If you demand absolute 100% accuracy, you may as well not read *any* news site. But I guarantee anyone who says they don't because of that still reads forums like this and gets their news with much worse accuracy as a result...

Simple flying is quite questionable, given that they make silly errors quite frequently, such as A340 instead of A350 or whatever. But, they DO reach out to airlines and manufacturers, so they're trying I guess. And it also shows the author's experience with aviation at the bottom. Not good but not bad either.