Profile

Aerlines – A unique magazine with a mission, worldwide known in the aviation industry. Welcome on board!

Aerlines Magazine, once the magazine of Aerius, International Association for Students of Aviation, was founded in 1994. It became an online magazine (e-zine) in 2003. Readership and circulation continually increased over time, and Aerlines has now become a full-fledged magazine. No longer a subsidiary of Aerius, Aerlines Magazine is now legally represented by the Aerlines Magazine Foundation, which is governed by a management team that is responsible for facilitating and managing all activities that are necessary to support the publication of Aerlines Magazine. Members of the management team work on a voluntary basis for the Aerlines Magazine Foundation.

Aerlines Magazine is run by an editorial team, which consists of several editors, and the team is headed by an editor in chief. All editors work on a voluntary basis for Aerlines Magazine. The editorial team is responsible for ensuring that all publications in Aerlines Magazine are in line with the objectives and principles stated in this document.

1. OBJECTIVE & IDENTITY

Aerlines Magazine is a non profit organisation, dedicated to providing free access to content. Aerlines Magazine aims to stimulate interaction between its readers, the academic world, and professionals in the aviation industry by contributing, in an independent way, in the dissemination of information and news regarding the aviation sector. Aerlines Magazine aims to be a professional magazine, while at the same time striving to remain accessible to various types of readers. The Aerlines Magazine’s editorial team oversees that articles are written in an accessible way in order to be understood and valued by its readers.

The Aerlines Magazine’s editorial team commits itself to editorial standards of the highest quality, and it will only publish articles it deems to be of added educational and/or added professional value.

1.1 DOMAIN & CONTENT

  • Articles published in Aerlines Magazine are preferably scientific-based articles about civil aviation or aviation-related topics.
  • Aerlines Magazine aims to cover a broad range of topics within the field of aviation, and to provide room for different points of view on each topic. The editorial team therefore invites all organizations, students, professionals and scholars that are somehow involved in the aviation industry to submit papers, essays, columns, or other kinds of articles. However, a majority of Aerlines Magazine’s current readers are interested in several specific policy issues, such as aviation economics and air law, which means that articles that cover these kinds of topics will be given precedence in case the editorial team has more articles at hand than it can publish in one issue. Articles will then be carried over articles to the next issue.
  • Aerlines Magazine strongly encourages discussion and debate among its readers. Readers with different opinions on topics that have been covered in previous issues are invited to voice their opinions and positions by submitting articles to Aerlines Magazine or by participating in the discussions in the discussions boards on the Aerlines website.
  • Aerlines Magazine tries not to present just one particular point of view on any topic.

1.2 POSITIONING OF AERLINES MAGAZINE

The current range of aviation magazines that are published is very broad, and most of these magazine are run on a commercial basis. The Aerlines Magazine’s editorial team considers it a challenge to position Aerlines Magazine in a such a way that sets it apart from the other magazines in this competitive segment of the magazine market.

One of the most important distinguishing features of Aerlines Magazine is that its articles are written by students and researchers. Aerlines Magazine is therefore different from the popular magazines, yet has an accessibility that most other academic or scientific journals lack.

1.3 DISTRIBUTION & CIRCULATION

  • Aerlines Magazine releases four regular issues per year, and optionally one special issue per year.
  • Since Aerlines Magazine is an e-zine, subscribers receive a personal notification email in their mailbox, informing them of the latest issue’s release, instead of receiving a printed copy.
  • Aerlines Magazine is open to sending information from third parties with the notification email, which is entirely at the editorial team’s discretion. However, this is certainly not standard procedure, and requests will most likely be granted in rare cases only.

1.4 SUBSCRIPTIONS

  • Subscription to Aerlines Magazine is free.
  • The editorial team is responsible for the subscribers’ database, which can only be accessed by the responsible members of the editorial team and of the Aerlines Magazine Foundation management team.
  • The Aerlines Magazine’s editorial team guarantees its subscribers that their email addresses will only be used for delivery of notification emails of Aerlines Magazines’ releases or of special events that are organized by or approved by Aerlines Magazine.
  • The email addresses of Aerlines Magazine’s subscribers will never be sold to third parties.

2. THE EDITORIAL TEAM

2.1 ORGANIZATION

The editorial team consists of, at least, an editor in chief (chairman), and a secretary. The editor in chief and/or the secretary schedule the next meeting after consulting as many members of the team as possible. The aim is to meet at least eight times per academic year. Meetings should at least cover the upcoming issue, plus the next two issues, and any other topics that any of the team members wish to discuss during the meeting. Tasks that are created during meetings will immediately be assigned to individual team members.

Considering the voluntary nature of Aerlines Magazine, no one can force other team members to execute the tasks that were assigned to them, yet the entire editorial team is responsible for reminding other members of their individual duties, as the production of the magazine is a team effort.

2.2 COMPETENCES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF TEAM MEMBERS

Editor in chief
• Chairs team meetings;
• Reports to the Aerlines Magazine Foundation management team about the state of affairs at Aerlines Magazine;
• Sees to it that these general principles are observed by all team members;
• Sets the conceptual course of action in close collaboration with the rest of the team;
• Sets deadlines and is responsible for these deadlines to be met;
• Fulfills a leading role on the editorial team, and clarifies issues regarding the competences and responsibilities to the other editors and the management team;
• Coordinates contact between editors, and introduces new members to the team;
• Actively searches for ideas for (potential) articles;
• Writes the ‘From the editors’ desk’ in collaboration with the editorial team;
• Attempts to harmonize the ideas and interests of all the editors;
• Carries out interviews, and writes articles if necessary;
• Initiates, coordinates, delegates and controls the entire editorial process;
• Takes the initiative in discussing the future of Aerlines Magazine.

General editor
• Informs other team members on all matters concerning incoming articles;
• Carries out interviews, and writes articles if necessary;
• Acts as person-of-contact for guest author or guest authors that have been assigned to him/her;
• Reviews incoming articles, and coordinates editing and linguistic revision with the linguistic editor;
• Contributes in the ongoing development of Aerlines..

Linguistic editor
• Edits all articles after they have reviewed;
• Is responsible for a consistent style and tone in all articles and other publications of Aerlines;
• Contacts editors in case an article under their care cannot be edited and thus needs major revisions.

Art director
• Makes sure lay-out standards of the organization identity are up-to-date;
• Sees to it that all published articles are in line with the currently used organization identity;
• Coordinates with the editor in chief on how to improve the organization identity;

Contributing editors
The editorial team is supported by contributing editors. They assess concepts for articles, brainstorm with the editors, write articles, recruit authors, write articles (on their own account), and may contribute to the magazine by helping with the editing of articles.

2.3 GUEST AUTHORS

As Aerlines Magazine relies on guest authors who contribute articles, team members are encouraged to search and contact potential contributors, such as students (those who just have finished their thesis), academic researchers, professionals in the private sector, and others who are interested in making a contribution to the knowledge on aviation.

Editors are advised to remind prospective authors of Aerlines Magazine’s Guidelines for Authors, which is available for download on Aerlines.nl. Only articles that are in compliance with Aerlines Magazine’s profile (accessible, relevant and of added value to the magazine) and with the aforementioned Guidelines will be admitted to the assessment process for publication. Editors should encourage authors to have their article to be read by other people before sending it in to the editorial team. The editorial team reserves the right to refuse any article without further notice.

If an article is published in the magazine, either the editor that was assigned to the author or the editor in chief will send a thank-you note to the authors on behalf of the entire editorial team.
Guest authors should be reminded by editors that, although Aerlines Magazine is a not-for-profit organization, the publication process requires a lot of planning, and that the editors work on a voluntary basis. This means that editors should make agreements and set deadlines with guest authors in order to be able to plan each issue. Guest authors should be encouraged to keep the editor that was assigned to them up-to-date with the current status of their article. Guest authors should be reminded that failing to meet agreements or deadlines on repeated occasions may jeopardize future collaborations with them.

2.4 COMMITMENT & IMPROVEMENT

Although Aerlines Magazine is a not-for-profit organization, and all members of the editorial team and the management team work for Aerlines on a voluntary basis, the publication process of Aerlines should be taken seriously by everyone involved. Agreeing to work for Aerlines implies a certain amount of commitment that is to be reflected in input, involvement, availability, concern, and being present at meetings. Members of the editorial team are expected to commit themselves to Aerlines for at least one academic year (September through July the following year).

If an editor wants to retire from the team, he/she is advised to indicate this well in advance to the editor in chief and to the management team. Retirements should preferably take place at the end of an academic year (until July), although this is not a strict rule.

Progress of Aerlines Magazine is continuously monitored throughout each academic year. This includes addressing bottlenecks in the publication process, and the market position of Aerlines Magazine. Team members are encouraged to come up with ideas and suggestions regarding the improvement and future of Aerlines Magazine.