Compared to the Western portion of the continent, where Air France was absent in 1977 and is quite present today, the Eastern half of Africa was much more thickly webbed by Hippodrome jets than it is today.
Air France does not even service Nairobi any more, but it was an important way-station between Europe and the former colonies of the Indian Ocean, with a stretching nonstop from CDG. Similarly, its amazing to see Djibouti as a massive hub, linked in a Cairo-Jeddah-Addis Ababa axis and also linked to the entire Francophone archipelago.
Other Anglophone cities that Air France has since abandoned include Dar Es Salaam and Entebbe (linked to Athens) as well as the Ethiopian capital. Links between Paris, Mauritius and Madagascar remain important today, but the native carriers of the region take a sizable share of the loads on their wide-body jets to Europe. Mahé is no longer an Air France destination, and Bujumbura and Kigali were also dropped, but still served from northwestern Europe by Brussels Airlines.
See previous post for other portion of this route map.
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