Air Gabon: External and Internal Networks, early- to mid-1980s

This is a partial repost of one the delightful gems that feature with astonishing regularity at our fellow airline timetable blog, Airline Memorabilia: An un-dated, un-specified brochure of Air Gabon, guessed at to be from the early 1980s, and corresponding well to other artifacts posted here in the past of the now-defunct Gabonese flag carrier. Surely the international network are usual suspects: Lomé, Cotonou, Abidjan, and Dakar, and even at its tiny scale the world map shows a clump of electrical cords plugged in from Libreville to Marseille, Nice, Geneva, and surely Paris, and probably Rome.

Gabon was so French that it even had its own Air Inter: Air Inter Gabon, which apparently operated the circuit board at right: a staggeringly numerous network of intereur destinations—there appear to be nearly 30 in the New England-sized nation. Unfortunately, due the resolution of the file, the exact list of cities can only be guessed at comparing a map of the country with the graphic. Even The Encyclopedia of African Airlines chronicles only a handful of them. Clearly the coastal petrol station of Port-Gentil is linked along the coast, and the other coastal cities are almost certainly Iguela and Tchibanga.

There is an evident triskelion of air routes converging at the extreme southeast of the forested country, which is surely the city of Franceville and barely but clearly the very nearby center of Moanda is also shown. While larger towns such as Lambaréné and northernmost Oyem are unquestionably shown here as well as Bitam, Koulamoutou, Makokou, Mayoumba, and Mouila, but there were at least a dozen others at the time. Only a higher-res graphic would shed light.

Thanks as always to the generosity of the first-rate Airline Memorabilia blog for uncovering and sharing this unique item. 

Air Afrique: The Schedule from New York, 1990

Continuing with Air Afrique week, and continuing with the pages of the airline's 1990 schedule first posted by Airline Memorabilia, the services to New York, the airline's only American destination. 

Air Afrique's twice-weekly DC-10 flights from Dakar to New York-JFK were the pride of it's network, even more so than the flights to metropolitan France. Here we see the full operation of both services, which originate in Abidjan on Wednesdays and Saturdays, both stopping at Dakar's Yoff Airport before crossing the Atlantic. Interestingly, the mid-week flight stops in Monrovia's Roberts International Airport; while the connection between Liberia and the U.S. is obvious, it was neither francophone nor a member of the Air Afrique consortium.

Aside from Abidjan/Dakar connections to Cotonou, Lomé, Bamako, Lagos and Niamey, the New York schedule suggests a number of connections not via Dakar, but on a trans-atlantic Air France B747 to CDG, which shows the various Air Afrique DC-10 flights to Brazzaville, Bangui, and N'Djamena. Intra-African links are also suggested on Ghana Airways to Accra and Air Gabon to Libreville.

Special thanks to the excellent Airline Memorabilia blog for allowing re-posting of this unique item.

Air Gabon: First Flight from Libreville to Paris, June 1977

Le Grand Derrière of a massive B747 greets the receiver of this envelope, celebrating the premier vol of Air Gabon's Libreville-Paris service on 3 June 1977. The Eiffel Tower's outline on the green skyline of the illustration is diminutive by comparison. The bottom of the envelope is also nicely detailed, with a cheat line and large-format insignia of the airline, including its dashing but cartoonish green parrot emblem.

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.

Air Gabon: Systemwide Timetable, 1990

Air Gabon is another carrier that has recently seen extensive attention on timetablist, only to be have this further article, a delightful sample from Flickr user caribb's amazing collection, illuminate its history further. This schedule shows, in excellent detail, Air Gabon's systemwide operations, divided into three tables: Europe, West Africa and Central Africa.

The top list shows the services from Gabon to the metropole, a rotation of thrice-weekly flights, all terminating at Charles de Gaulle, but stopping in variously Marseille, Nice or Rome along the way.

The second box lists the northwesterly runs from Libreville, operated with either Fokker F-100 or Boeing B737 jets, once-weekly to Cotonou; twice-weekly to Abidjan via Lagos, extending on Mondays to Dakar; Douala and onward to Lomé on Wednesday; and Lomé-Abidjan on Saturday.

The third table shows the central and southern network. Shown here once weekly to Pointe-Noire, a F-28 flight to Bangui, and a Sunday flight to Douala only. There is a late-evening DC-10 to Kinshasa, co-listed with a Swissair flight number-- an earlier time, Swissair was known to fly to Zaïre, as has been shown in a previous post.

There is also an early morning B747 to Luanda--presumably a continuation of the Paris-Marseille-Libreville flight, with a TAAG Angola Airlines flight number listed. These joint ventures are noted at the bottom of the leaflet, but details on just which carrier's craft ran the service is not fully provided.

It is especially curious that Gabon's second city and petrolhub, Port-Gentil, is absent from the roster, as are other likely destinations such as Brazzaville, Malabo, and Yaounde.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Air Gabon: Worldwide Network, 1992

Two lovely vintage graphics from the now sadly defunct Air Gabon, with its delightful, cartoonish icon. Underneath is a wealth of detail of the 3x weekly from Paris CDG Terminal 1 aboard a B747 Combi, with 18 First Class and 46 Business Class and 188 Economy Class seats to Libreville, with onward connections to Pointe-Noire, Luanda and Port-Gentil. Despite the lively colors and the lubricant of the lavish petrol-paradises of its regional network, and its stately ticket office on Rue Roosevelt off the Champs Elysées, Air Gabon has failed. Paris-Libreville, aside from service by Air France, is now served by Gabon Airlines with a rather blandly undecorated leased A340, which still departs terminal 1 and still has three classes of service. Travelers at Nice and Marseille must somehow make their way to Gabon without convenience of direct service.