# Editorial policy: primary sources checked 15 Sep 2026 Source: https://airtravelrights.com/editorial-policy/ > Our editorial policy: numbers come only from primary sources, and CJEU case law only from a closed allow-list of 34 rulings. # Editorial policy 15 September 2026 is the date every rule in the current fact base was last read on its primary source, and that date appears in the Source line under each figure. No amount on this site is copied from another guide. Nothing on this page is invented either. It covers where a number is allowed to come from, how a court decision earns a citation, what "AI-assisted" means in practice, how regimes, currencies and dates are labelled, and what happens when a published page turns out to be wrong. No page carries an individual byline or a "reviewed by" credit. Every page speaks as the [Air Travel Rights editorial team](https://airtravelrights.com/about/), because the checks described below are fixed rules, not one person's judgement. ## Which sources can a number on this site come from? A number counts only if its source is one of 4 types: a legislation portal (legislation.gov.uk, eur-lex.europa.eu, laws-lois.justice.gc.ca, ecfr.gov), a regulator's own site (CAA, CTA, DOT, IAA), ICAO, or an ADR body's own site. Claim companies, law-firm blogs and Wikipedia are leads, never a citation. Every fact we publish carries a source URL, the article or section it comes from, and the date we last read it there. A number, threshold or deadline with no Verified row behind it is not published. It is not fed into the compensation calculator either. It stays a Pending or Unverified note for editors, not for readers, until a primary source confirms it. Look for the "Source:" line under any table or figure on this site. If it names a legislation portal, a regulator or ICAO with a checked date, the number is Verified. No line means no fact: treat it as absent, not implied. The calculator and dataset method is set out at [how we verify](https://airtravelrights.com/how-we-verify/). ## How do we cite court decisions? 37 CJEU rulings and 14 UK neutral citations sit on the two closed allow-lists this site cites from. A case missing from both lists is not named here, however often a claims-company page repeats it, and every case we do cite carries its correct court and the point it decided. Each allow-list row records the case name, its case number or neutral citation, the year, a one-line holding and a primary-source link: EUR-Lex for CJEU rulings, the National Archives' Find Case Law for UK decisions. On UK-law pages, a CJEU ruling handed down after 31 December 2020 is labelled persuasive, not binding. Under section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, UK courts may have regard to such rulings but are not bound by them. Source: European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, s.6 — legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-15. A county court decision binds nobody. Where this site cites one, it is labelled an example rather than authority. Check the court before you rely on a case we cite. A Court of Appeal decision is not a Supreme Court one, and the allow-list exists to keep that distinction straight. ## How is AI used in drafting, and what does an editor check? Every page is audited line by line against 1 fact base of Verified rows and 2 case-law allow-lists before it is published. Every draft here starts with AI assistance, and no fact in it goes live until it matches a Verified row checked on a primary source. AI assistance means the first draft of a page's wording comes from a language model working from sourced facts, not from its own memory of the topic. That draft then passes a fixed set of gates. An automated check covers each section's answer capsule and length, the Sources list, the structured data, and every case citation against both allow-lists. The editorial audit then compares each figure with its Verified row. A page that fails a gate goes back for another pass, not out to readers with a caveat. No model writes a figure here. Every number in a draft is matched to a Verified row before the page moves on, and a draft sentence that cannot be matched is cut rather than softened ([About](https://airtravelrights.com/about/)). ## How do we label regimes, currencies and dates? 5 currencies never convert into one another on this site: £ for UK261, € for EU261, C$ for APPR, $ for US DOT, and SDR for the Montreal Convention. An amount keeps the currency its own regulation states, because a converted figure stops being the legal entitlement and becomes an estimate we have not verified. Currency is part of the fact, not a display choice. A UK261 amount is never rewritten in euros, and a converted number is never placed in a table as if it were the statute's own figure. The same discipline runs within a page: one regime per statement, so a UK261 paragraph never borrows an EU261 threshold to fill a gap. Two dates do different jobs. The checked date in a Source line moves only when we re-read the primary source behind that fact. The modified date in a page's structured data moves only on a real content change, never a cosmetic refresh. A checked date a quarter old does not make a figure stale if the rule behind it has not changed: look the figure up at the act and article named in that Source line. ## What happens when a published page turns out to be wrong? Within 1 working day, a wrong compensation amount or a wrong deadline is fixed, and the whole page is re-checked against its primary sources rather than that one line. A stale link or a broken cross-reference waits for the next scheduled pass. What sets the speed is consequence, not embarrassment. A wrong amount or a wrong deadline can cost a reader a claim; a wrong link costs a click. Two things most sites blur are kept apart here. A correction means the page was wrong when it was published, and it goes in the corrections log. An update means the rule itself changed; the checked date moves and the change is dated in the [rule-change log](https://airtravelrights.com/data/passenger-rights-rule-changes/). Neither is ever swapped in silently. A report is usable when it carries three things: the page URL, the figure as published, and the primary source that contradicts it. Send those to corrections@airtravelrights.com, or use the "Tell the editorial team" link at the end of every article, which opens a message to the same address. The log itself, and the rule for withdrawing a page that is no longer true, sit on the [corrections page](https://airtravelrights.com/corrections/). Check that log before you quote a figure from here in a letter to an airline. This page explains how the site is written and checked; it is not legal advice. For a specific claim, contact the enforcement body named on the page for your flight's regime, or a qualified lawyer. ## Sources - Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and its UK-retained form — [eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004R0261) and [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/contents), checked 2026-09-15. - European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, s.6 — [legislation.gov.uk](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/6), checked 2026-09-15. - Air Passenger Protection Regulations (SOR/2019-150) — [laws-lois.justice.gc.ca](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2019-150/FullText.html), checked 2026-09-15. - 14 CFR Parts 250, 254, 259, 260 — [ecfr.gov](https://www.ecfr.gov/), checked 2026-09-15. - CJEU judgments — [curia.europa.eu](https://curia.europa.eu/) and [eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/), checked against the CJEU allow-list, 2026-09-15. - UK case law — [caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/), checked against the UK case-law allow-list, 2026-09-15. - Civil Aviation Authority — [caa.co.uk](https://www.caa.co.uk/), checked 2026-09-15. - Canadian Transportation Agency — [otc-cta.gc.ca](https://otc-cta.gc.ca/), checked 2026-09-15. - US Department of Transportation — [transportation.gov](https://www.transportation.gov/), checked 2026-09-15. - Irish Aviation Authority — [iaa.ie](https://www.iaa.ie/), checked 2026-09-15.