Editorial Policy

CheapFlightsAfrica is an independent pan-African aviation editorial site covering flight routes, airlines, airports, Hajj/Umrah pilgrim logistics, and intra-African + diaspora travel from 50+ African countries. Our readers make real financial decisions — booking transatlantic family-visit flights, allocating Hajj quota cash, choosing between Gulf-hub transit options — based on what we publish. This policy lays out how we research and verify what we recommend.

Editorial team

Articles are published under the CheapFlightsAfrica Editorial Team byline. Editorial leadership, the aviation desk, fact-check desk, and visual production team are named on the About page. Every YMYL article is signed off by the Editor-in-Chief (Naledi Mokoena) or the Managing Editor (Adeola Adebayo) before publication.

YMYL designation

The following article categories are treated as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) under Google's quality framework and our internal trust standard:

• Visa rules and processing times (Schengen, UK, US, Canada, Australia)
• Hajj / Umrah quota allocation, pilgrim package costs, and Saudi Ministry of Hajj rules
• Baggage allowance and excess-baggage rates
• Currency / FX guidance (USD-ZAR, USD-NGN, USD-KES, USD-GHS)
• Specific fare quotes attached to a calendar date
• Health-prep advice (yellow fever, malaria prophylaxis) for travel into / out of Africa

YMYL articles require a two-source rule: every load-bearing factual claim must be supported either by (a) two independent regulator or board citations, or (b) one regulator/board citation plus one airline Investor Relations filing or scheduled-flight published-timetable confirmation. Secondary news outlets do not satisfy the two-source requirement on their own.

Source hierarchy

We rank sources, highest reliability first:

1. Pan-African and national regulators: African Union Commission (for SAATM and Agenda 2063 aviation policy), SACAA (South Africa), NCAA (Nigeria), KCAA (Kenya), GCAA (Ghana), CAA Tanzania, ECAA (Egypt), ANAC Mozambique, INAVIC Angola, and the equivalent civil aviation authorities of each AU member state.
2. Hajj / Umrah boards: NAHCON (Nigeria), SAHUC (South Africa), KAHCON (Kenya), GHC (Ghana), Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah for visa and quota policy.
3. Multilateral bodies: ICAO published rules, IATA Codeshare and IOSA registries, UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) arrival statistics.
4. Airline primary sources: Investor Relations filings, scheduled timetables, airline-published baggage and loyalty rules.
5. Reputable trade and aviation press: AnnaAero, FlightGlobal, ch-aviation, CAPA Centre for Aviation. Used for context and second-source confirmation, not as a substitute for primary sources.
6. National news outlets: used only for context or as a tertiary confirmation of regulator announcements; never as the sole source for a YMYL claim.

Fact-check process

Every article passes through a four-step process before publication:

1. Research draft — sector editor (Aviation Desk, Hajj Desk, Diaspora Desk, Business Desk) drafts the article with inline source notes.
2. Fact-check pass — the fact-check desk (Adeola Adebayo) verifies each load-bearing claim against the source hierarchy above. Claims that fail the two-source rule are either re-sourced or removed.
3. YMYL sign-off — Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editor sign-off required for YMYL articles.
4. Pre-publication tone check — articles are scanned for tone-lock compliance (no apartheid politicization, no race / ethnicity stereotyping, no crime framing, no white-savior framing, no Nigerian-scam stereotype, no Africa-is-poor patronizing). Tone-lock violations block publication.

Corrections policy

When we learn of a factual error in a published article, we:

• Correct the error in the body text within 24 hours of confirmation.
• Update the last_updated date on the article.
• Add a dated Corrections note at the bottom of the article when the correction is material (changes the article's conclusion, fare bracket, visa rule, or Hajj timing).
• Re-issue the article's structured-data dateModified for search-engine re-crawl.

Minor corrections (typo, broken internal link) are made silently with a refresh of last_updated.

Conflict of interest

No editor or contributor at CheapFlightsAfrica holds equity in an airline, OTA, travel insurance carrier, or Hajj package operator covered in our articles. When a contributor has a personal-relationship conflict (e.g. a family member working at an airline we cover in the same article), we disclose the conflict in the byline. Editorial leadership reviews and re-assigns the article if the conflict is material.

Use of AI / LLM tools

We use large language models (LLMs) as research assistants for source-finding, first-draft outlining, and clarity edits — never as the final voice of an article. Every published article passes through human editorial review, fact-checking, and tone-lock compliance. We do not publish LLM-generated content without human verification of every load-bearing claim. Hero and inline images are generated via fal.ai based on detailed editorial prompts that explicitly exclude stereotype tropes.

Commercial transparency

Our affiliate marketing relationships are documented in the Affiliate Disclosure. We do not accept airline sponsorship or paid placement, do not publish paid rankings, and do not modify editorial conclusions in exchange for affiliate revenue. Reader trust outranks affiliate margin.

Tone-lock

Hard rules applied to every article and every fal.ai image prompt: no apartheid politicization, no race / ethnicity stereotyping, no crime / lawlessness framing of African airports or cities, no "Africa is poor / rising / dangerous" generalizations, no Nigerian-scam stereotype, no white-savior or post-colonial guilt framing, no safari / wild-Africa imagery, no political opinion on African leaders. Tone register: dignified, practical, pan-African, diaspora-warm.

Contact

Editorial concerns or correction requests: email [email protected]. General questions: [email protected].