Methodology

Every value on this site is one database row with three required fields: the URL of the airport's or operator's own page, a quote of 25 words or fewer copied from that page, and the date we last checked it. The rules below are enforced by code, not by editors.

1. Where a value may come from

• Official: the airport's own domain (heathrow.com, gatwickairport.com, manchesterairport.co.uk and so on). Only these pages may be marked official.
• Operator: the transport operator's own page (Heathrow Express, Transport for London, TransPennine Express) for first and last train times.
• Secondary: anything else. A secondary value may display, but it never counts towards publishing a page.

2. When a page exists at all

An airport × topic page publishes only when it holds at least 3 official or operator values. Below that, the address returns a real 404 rather than a thin page. Titles and headings come from one template per topic and never contain a price.

3. Three checks on every value

1. Verbatim quote. The 25-word quote must appear word for word on the source page when we fetch it ourselves. A paraphrase is rejected.
2. Domain matches confidence. A value marked official whose source is not the airport's own domain is rejected.
3. Plausible range and cross-field checks. A drop-off charge above £200, a free period above 24 hours, or a car park's free period filed as the forecourt's free minutes is held for a person to read.

4. Freshness

Each value shows Source: host · Verified date. A value older than 60 days carries a "check with the airport" badge. A daily job fetches a sample of live pages and confirms the rendered value still matches the database; a refresh job re-reads source pages and records any changed figure in the change log, with the old and new values.

5. Worked example, computed live

The live example needs the database; it renders once facts are loaded.

6. Data sources

• Airport websites (drop-off, pick-up, parking and facilities pages), fetched with a browser because six UK airports block plain requests.
• Rail operator timetable pages for first and last trains.
• Search demand figures from DataForSEO, recorded with the pull date and location, used only to decide whether a page is worth building.
• Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights for monitoring what is live, never as a source of facts.

7. What this site refuses to do

• State a figure from memory, an estimate, or a third-party guide. If the airport does not publish it, the row does not exist.
• Overwrite a checked value automatically. A changed figure is proposed for a person to read against the source page.
• Publish prose beyond a 60-word topic introduction. The pages are tables of sourced values.
• Pad a page with secondary sources to cross the 3-value publishing line.

Corrections: every page names its source; if a value is wrong, the source page is what changed. Contact details are in the site footer.