Fact checking policy

Every factual claim in a guide is checked by someone other than its author. The checker works from the claim back to the source, and anything that cannot be traced is either removed or clearly labelled as operational experience rather than rule.

Our source hierarchy is fixed: government and border authorities first, then aviation regulators, then carrier conditions of carriage and fare rules, then airport operators, and only then documented practitioner experience. Other publications are used to find leads and are never cited as evidence.

Airline claims are checked against the carrier's own published terms, not against summaries. Where a guide describes an online step, an editor confirms the step still exists in the live booking tool before publication.

When operators differ, the guide describes the range rather than picking one carrier as representative. We never name a carrier as better or worse, only as different, and no airline sees a guide before it is published.

Regulators, border authorities and major airport operators are monitored on a schedule owned by the editor responsible for each desk. Documentation and entry rules are watched most closely because they change with the least notice.

A confirmed change triggers an immediate out-of-cycle review of every guide that touches the rule, not just the guide that names it.

Guides carry a review date. When a review finds the answer has moved, the guide is rewritten in place, the updated date changes, and the original publication date stays so readers can see how long the guide has existed.

Where a rule has become genuinely uncertain, we publish the uncertainty. A guide that says the position is changing is more useful than one that states an answer we cannot support.

Errors are corrected as soon as they are confirmed. A correction carries a date and a short description of what changed, and we do not silently rewrite claims readers may already have relied on.

Reader reports are welcome and are treated as credible until checked. If you believe something here is wrong, tell us and we will look at it, including when the answer is that we got it wrong.

Our guides explain how rules and processes work. They are not a substitute for the airline, airport or border authority handling your journey, and they cannot account for individual booking conditions.

Before anything time-critical, confirm the detail with the operator or authority involved. Every guide repeats that reminder for the same reason: the cost of an out-of-date sentence falls on the traveler, not on us.