White Contrails is an AI-assisted, human-supervised aviation news service. This page explains exactly how stories are sourced, scored, summarised, and corrected — because if we ask for your trust, you deserve to see the machinery.
We monitor official and specialist sources continuously: manufacturer press rooms (Airbus, Boeing), regulators (FAA, EASA), wire services and aviation trade press. Sources are tiered by reliability — primary sources (the company or regulator itself) rank above specialist journalism, which ranks above aggregators. Content farms are excluded. Stories covered by only a single non-primary source are displayed one grade lower until a second source corroborates.
First-hand material is labelled on every card: 🏛 Official statement for regulators, 🏛 Company statement for manufacturer press releases — accurate on facts, but remember the author's interest.
| Grade | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A | Landmark / historic | Crewed Moon mission, first flight of a major aircraft, landmark court ruling |
| B | Significant industry shift | Major bankruptcy, large fleet order, production-rate breakthrough |
| C | Project milestone | Certification phase cleared, plant opening, notable partnership |
| D | Routine transaction | Standard orders, route launches, lease deals |
| E | Minor update | Personnel moves, local events — archived, not displayed |
| F | Noise | Clickbait, speculation, celebrity jets — discarded |
Grades are assigned by an AI model against written criteria (including quantitative thresholds for financial size and operational disruption), validated by a regression test suite, and audited by a human editor who can override any grade. When an editor overrides, the card shows an "Editor's grading note" instead of the AI rationale — click the ⓘ Why grade…? line on any card to read the reasoning.
Our Orders & Deliveries page uses official manufacturer figures only — Airbus's published monthly reports and Boeing's official dataset. Monthly numbers are derived from each manufacturer's own cumulative totals, so restatements correct themselves. Each figure shows its "as of" month; the two manufacturers publish on different schedules.
When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so. Corrections are noted on the story and logged. To report an error: editor@whitecontrails.com — we read everything.
White Contrails accepts no payment for coverage, placement, or grades. If that ever changes (e.g. clearly-labelled sponsorship), it will be disclosed here first.