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Monday, January 30, 2012
Spanair: International Routes from Barcelona, 2011
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Spanair: The Network from Barcelona, 2011
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This hip, fanciful artwork, prominently displayed inside the terminal at El Prat Airport in Barcelona last year, was not enough to alter the fortunes of Spanair, which ceased operations this past weekend. This unique graphic was celebrated in the design press for its storybook celebrations of a score of cities, each highlighted with its own landmark or symbol in a palette-- Brussels with its Atomium, Cairo marked by its pyramids, Frankfurt by the Commerzbank Tower, etc. The spaghetti line connections are for appearance, not accuracy, and no underlying geography governs the array of cities across the canvas.
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The map features many of Spanair's domestic destinations, including several in the Canary Islands, which has long been a major focus of Spanair's operations. Most of the other cities are part of Spanair's European network, which stretched from the Eastern Mediterranean (Istanbul, Tel Aviv) to northwestern Europe and Scandinavia (Spanair had at times been as much as 20% owned by SAS). A handful of the destinations featured are intercontinental cities which could be reached only via Spanair's Star Alliance partnerships, such as Montreal, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia and Singapore.
Images via inquetto.com and NOTCOT.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
VARIG: Worldwide Network, c.1975
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This undersized image file is a bit difficult to read, but is yet an informative mid-1970s route map of the Brazilian carrier VARIG. A conventional wall map overlaid with red route lines makes for an unoriginal and underwhelming document, but it even in its somewhat dull and diminutive format reveals some interesting information, especially the concentration of routes from Rio de Janeiro, whereas since this era the aviation action has decidedly shifted south to São Paulo.
Long trans-equatorial non stops to Miami and New York are juxtaposed with multistop zigzags such as Rio-Recife-Madrid-Rome-Tel Aviv or Rio-Recife-Paris-Frankfurt/London. The return journey from Iberia stops at Robertsfield, Monrovia-- the only African destination and location for a fatal 1967 VARIG crash on such a route. An Andean mini hub at Lima leads to jags up Mesoamerica, from Panama to Los Angeles.
There seem to be no routes out of Manaus or Brasilia, but this is a classic trap of cartography of this style, where it is hard to discern, especially from a distance, if a route is merely passing over a dot on a map, or pit stopping.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
TACV Cabo Verde Airlines Timetable, November 2011
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Despite its diminutive size, TACV is a quad-continental carrier, with additional European flights to Lisbon, Paris and Amsterdam, and the Wikipedia list of destinations, updated at the same time as this schedule, also lists Nice, secondary cities in Portugal, and several cities in Spain and Italy. A single transatlantic 757 service from Praia to Boston Logan is shown above, bridges the island to the world's largest Cape Verdean community, centered around southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Closer to the islands themselves, TACV provides one of the few scheduled services to Lusophone Guinea-Bissau, linking the tiny capital Bissau with Dakar, and also serving Freetown and Banjul on the mainland--although interestingly the African schedule is not included in the above matrix. Lastly, a single link to South America's massive Portuguese-speaking population is achieved by landing at the closest Brazilian city, Fortaleza.
Labels:
Amsterdam,
Banjul,
Bissau,
Boa Vista,
Boston,
Dakar,
Fogo,
Fortaleza,
Freetown,
Las Palmas,
Lisbon,
Maio,
Nice,
Paris,
Praia,
Sal de Cabo Verde,
Sao Nicolao,
Sao Vicente,
TACV
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
SATA Air Açores Network, 2011.
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Labels:
Corvo,
Faro,
Funchal,
Horta,
Ilha de Flores (Açores),
Las Palmas,
Lisbon,
Oporto,
Pico,
Ponta Delgada,
Porto Santo,
Santa Maria,
SATA,
Terceira
Monday, January 23, 2012
SATA Internaçional Network, 2011
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
TAP Air Portugal Network, 1974: Detail of European Routes.
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Labels:
Amsterdam,
Brussels,
Copenhagen,
Düsseldorf,
Faro,
Frankfurt,
Funchal,
Geneva,
Lisbon,
London,
Madrid,
Paris,
Ponta Delgada,
Porto,
Porto Santo,
Santa Maria,
TAP,
Terceira,
Zurich
TAP Air Portugal Network, 1974
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The last from this month's series from the remarkable Flight International Magazine archives available at flight global.com comes this magazine-made map of TAP Air Portugal's four-continent network on the eve of independence for the Lusophone colonies of Africa. Maputo is still Lourenço Marques, and for that matter Salisbury is not yet Harare. Interestingly, the caption of the map mention's prospects of 'improved relations with black Africa' in hopes of ending the "bulge" route which avoids banned West African airspace--similar to the constrictions that Apartheid-era South African Airways endured.
Interestingly, the mid-70s TAP is thin on its routes to Brazil, merely two destinations, with no service to Sao Paulo, Natal, Belem, or Brasilia. Recife is misspelled-- merely the most glaring cartographic fault, which lazily plots northeastern US cities far inland and European capitals at random.
Luanda appears as a major scissor station, linking the homeland with five southern African cities, as well as a boomerang connection to the tiny São Tomé e Príncipe archipelago. A handful of North Atlantic routes stretch from Lisbon and the Açores to New York, Montreal, and Boston, where large communities from Portugal, Cape Verde, and the Azores reside. Direct service to the US East Coast is offered from both Ponta Delgada (here referred to as Miguel--on the island of São Miguel) and Terceira, as SATA International still does today.
Today, TAP has more routes to Brazil, and maintains its colonial connections (but not its web of services) in Africa, but has all but abandoned the trans-Atlantic trade.
The following post will detail TAP's European services shown above.
Labels:
Beira,
Bissau,
Boston,
Buenos Aires,
Harare,
Johannesburg,
Lisbon,
Luanda,
Maputo,
Montreal,
New York,
Ponta Delgada,
Recife,
Rio de Janeiro,
Sal de Cabo Verde,
Sao Tome,
TAP,
Terceira
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Emirates Network, 1989
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Similar to yesterday's post on Thai Airways, the dominant colors are pale yellow with thick black route lines, although this map features the continents, with the oceans in blue, and also the route network lacks the trapezoidal circuitry of the Thai Airways map.
Not that such graphic gymnastics are required here: diminutive Emirates, which now overpowers service between India and Europe, linking scores of cities in each region, at this time served only two Western European airports: Frankfurt and London, the first not even nonstop, but via Istanbul; which although surely at the time the latter not even Heathrow, but less-prestigious Gatwick (an airport Emirates has since vacated).
North America, where as of mid-2012 Emirates will offer nonstop service to more than half a dozen airports, is not even included on this map. Neither any part of Asia east of Bengal, much less Australia, to which Emirates is now a dominant competitor on the Kangaroo Route. Despite its upstart status and small size, Emirates was already on the move, as indicated by the map's caption. If the same section of the earth's surface were the focus of an Emirates map today, it would show only a slim majority of the super carrier's six-continent operations.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thai Airways International: Worldwide Network, 1985
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From here, the lines continue west, extending into a knot of European destinations, among them Athens, Rome, and Copenhagen--Thai is still today virtually the only Asian presence at Kastrup. Despite the angularity of the route lines, the relative positions of cities are generally true, with the lone exception of Muscat, shown somewhere north of Baghdad in an offshoot of the link between Karachi and Paris.
Closer to the center of its world, the map's thick marks show multiple links across East and South Asia, with dense operations particularly in Hong Kong, Taipei and Singapore as well as smaller cities from Kathmandu to Osaka, as well as four cities in Australia. Thai Airways lived up to the "International" in its name, years before it reached New York and Los Angeles.
Route map from the abundant archives of flightglobal.com
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Thai Airways: The Domestic Network, November 2008
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Labels:
Bangkok,
Chiang Mai,
Chiang Rai,
Hat Yai,
Khon Kaen,
Krabi,
Mae Hong Son,
Phitsanulok,
Phnom Penh,
Phuket,
Samui,
Surat Thani,
Thai,
Ubon Ratchathani,
Udon Thani
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
American Airlines Announces Japan Airlines's New Dreamliner Service from Tokyo to Boston, April 2012
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Typical of American Airlines's outdated branding, this email announcement to frequent fliers, despite its exciting news, makes for mediocre viewing. Not much thought was put into the visuals, a Disneyesque combination of faux-calligraphic typeface and dull-blue photograph of a snow-capped Mount Fuji. Its obvious from this that Tokyo is the destination at hand.
Indeed, Japan Air Lines's announcement of nonstop service between Narita and Boston, the first ever such connection, and the first nonstop flight of an Asian carrier into Logan in over ten years (from the days when Korean Air ran a Seoul-Boston-Washington Dulles triangle), is one of the most exciting develops in intercontinental service to the US that has been announced for 2012. That a brand-new B787 will run the route is even more compelling. Yet American somehow fumbles again, with its incorrect statement that "we now offer the first nonstop route between Boston and Asia" which also confusingly suggests that silver American metal will make the journey, when American is far from enjoying any brand-new Dreamliners, and anyway most passengers would strongly prefer JAL to AA.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Korean Air: A380 Service to New York and Los Angeles, 2011
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A luscious Online banner advertisement boasts of Korean Air's superjumbo service to its to principal American gateways: Los Angeles and New York-JFK, from its megahub at Seoul-Incheon. The banner ad links to more detailed press release on the airline's website, shown here also. Service to New York began in August and Los Angeles in October. Initially, the double-decker flights were thrice-weekly, but became daily later in the fall of 2011. The language, "where dreams are made," recalls Korean Air's widespread television commercials, featured previously. The press release also details the airline's plan for regional A380 service to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Lagos-Accra, May 1976
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Douala-Kinshasa, 1985
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Lufthansa: Accra-Kinshasa, 1983.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Swissair: Zürich-Dakar-Bamako, 1996
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Swissair: Zürich-Genève-Libreville, May 1971
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Monday, January 9, 2012
Swissair: Genéve-Douala, April 1976
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Sunday, January 8, 2012
UTA French Airlines: First DC-8 Flight from Paris to Douala, September 1960
An early jet-age connection to equatorial Africa: the French overseas airline, UTA, which was then, prior to its merger with TAI, operating as Union Aeromaritime de Transport (UAT) but even at this time had its distinctive purple color scheme, carried this envelope to the recently-independent Cameroon in September 1960, linking Paris with Douala aboard the first flight of a DC-8 "jetliner", as the thick cancellation stamp makes clear, although there is nearly as much handwriting on the paper as printed stamp, perhaps the result of collector's cataloging.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Air Gabon: First Flight from Libreville to Paris, June 1977
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A more front-facing jumbo jet features on the postage stamp, printed in matching Gabonese colors specially to mark the first day. Surely, this economically-dubious but coveted connection was the flagship route of the state carrier, as hinted by the delightful disco-era block-and-shadow letters at upper left, calling out the newly-linked capitals.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Cameroon Airlines: Monday Service Douala-Lagos-Paris, April 1994
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Thursday, January 5, 2012
Camair Co: Systemwide Timetable, Fall 2011
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The three pages of the ephebic Cameroon Airlines Corporation, the 10-month old national airline of Cameroon, from the previous fall. Camair has already managed to cover a wide swath of Central Africa, from Dakar to inland N'djamena and Bangui. Lagos is virtually the only Anglophone city served. Nearby Libreville and Malabo are also linked to Yaounde and Douala; a multi-day shuttle service runs between these two principal cities. There are also a handful of domestic routes. A wide body service to Paris-CDG has also commenced (the airline has a pair of B767 widebodies).
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Air Panama Timetable, April to October 1985
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