How we source and correct our reporting

The Frequent Flier is built on primary, public data rather than secondhand reporting. Fleet and operator data comes from the US DOT Form 41 Schedule B-43 filing; registration status from the FAA Aircraft Registry; delivery dates from Airbus and Boeing official reports; and live operational status from the FAA's National Airspace System status feed. Where a figure is derived or approximate, the piece says so.

The fleet and delivery datasets are refreshed on a monthly cadence from the latest regulatory filings; every data page carries the date it was last refreshed and the filing year it reflects. The FAA delays dashboard is live. Briefings are analysis pinned to the data available at publication and are dated accordingly.

The Frequent Flier is supported in part by credit-card affiliate partnerships, disclosed on the affiliate disclosure page. Those partnerships never determine what gets covered or how it is assessed. Analysis follows the data; commercial relationships do not buy favorable coverage.

Accuracy matters more than being first. If something here is wrong — a stat, a date, an aircraft assignment — flag it and it gets fixed. Cross-source discrepancies surfaced during data ingestion are queued for manual review before they reach a page. To report an error, email hello@thefrequentflier.com.

Every briefing is written by a real person with a real byline — Michael Chen, who reports from more than 1.2 million miles of firsthand travel. Analysis and judgment here are human, not machine-generated.