Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: Australasia

We end our examination of the global network of Qatar Airways back where we started: its Australian services, with non-stop flights to four Aussie cities. Perhaps more worthy of note is the recent development of the incredible, 18-hour Doha—Auckland non-stop, which, however briefly, would be the world's longest non-stop flight, if and when its launch is no longer under delay. Currently, Emirates Dubai—Auckland holds the title. 

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The Global Routes

Since last year, Emirates undertook a redesign of their increasingly-complex route map. This stunning, dynamic work of pseudo-Dymaxion cartography is the result.

Over the next week, each page and inset of the route map will be posted in detail. This is page one, showing the red superhighways of superjumbos bolting out of Dubai like a network of refinery pipelines (fitting for a Gulf carrier). Africa, East Asia and Australasia are shown fully; South Asia and the Middle East are blank. Likewise, Europe is left mostly empty, except as it indicates the trans-Atlantic routes, which are shown passing polarwise for North America and in a trans-equatorial conduit across central Africa.

This map best represents the far Asian routes from Beijing to Bangkok and, as was discussed in the last post, the megadarrier's predominance in the Southeast Asia—Australia market and the trans-Tasman airspace, the interconnections between Bangkok and Singapore and the major Australian cities, and onward to Auckland.

Emirates: The Worldwide Route Map, March 2015

Continuing to look at Emirates this week, here is the intricate pinwheel of Emirates routes radiating out of Dubai in March 2015, scooping clockwise to East Asia and the Americas, Africa and Southern Europe, and counter-clockwise to Australia and Northern Europe. 

Several routes stand out from the spinning pattern: the controversial Milan Malpensa—New York JFK superjumbo operation being one, and the connection between Larnaca and Malta cuts across several of the three dozen routes which make up the tremendously dense European services. 

The network is at its most complex in Australasia, with the mini-hub in Singapore connecting via Colombo with onward routes directly to Brisbane and Melbourne, which also has a non-stop from Kuala Lumpur, whereas Sydney has a direct connection to Bangkok, which is itself linked to Hong Kong. All three eastern Australian cities connect to Auckland; Emirates is now a dominant player in the trans-Tasman market, flooding the antipodean skies with double-decker A380s, and making an additional appearance at Christchurch. 

Elsewhere, a few distant pairs are linked up operationally: the Rio de Janeiro service continues on to Buenos Aires (whereas Sao Paulo gets a dedicated non-stop); Accra and Abidjan have long been linked together. Most notably, Dakar is shown as triangulating with Conakry, although this perennially delayed service relaunch was only underway in October.

Thai Airways Route Table, A-G, November 2016

Echoing a post from earlier this week, Thai Airways has kept up its tradition of matrixing its entire route network in the back pages of its in-flight magazine. Details include the mileage, flight time, time zone, and even the local contact number. Comparing to the 2013 version, the increased number of Chinese cities, such as Changsha and Chongqing, is most obvious. 

The entire table will be covered in the following series of posts. 

China Airlines: Direct Flight Non-Stop from Rome to Taipei, November 2016

                                      

A back-lit billboard currently gracing the departures halls of Rome Fiumicino Airport, promoting China Airlines's hub at Taipei as a gateway to the "Extreme Orient" and Oceania. Although the dotted lines land on countries, not specific cities, there are a lot of options of the Italian traveler headed east, as CAL links to three cities in Australia, two in New Zealand, two in Malaysia, and a dozen in Japan. Indonesia and the Philippines are also served but are not shown on this advertisement's map. 

BOAC: The Speedbird Routes Across the World, c.1950

The might of the empire spans the newsprint continents in this vintage route map of BOAC. Trunks routes out of London connect five continents, with a major trunk route crossing the Mediterranean at Malta, heading east to Cairo, Basra, Bahrain and Karachi, where the routes splits north along a Delhi-Calcutta-Rangoon-Bangkok axis, turning northeast to terminate at Hong Kong, while a second route reaches far southeast to Singapore, stopping intermittently at Surabaya, somewhat surprisingly, then into Antipodea at Darwin, finally reaching Sydney, where Tasman Empire Airways connects to Auckland. 

The next post will detail the African and North Atlantic routes. 

Thai Airways: International Routes table, 2013

Similar to the table provided in South African Airways' inflight magazine, Thai Airways provides a listing of its international destinations from Bangkok, with distances, flight duration, local time at a local reservations phone number.

South African Airways: the Australasian routes, 2013

The East Asian and Australian section of South African Airways' route map, from its inflight magazine in mid-2013, shows as many services of other carriers in the Star Alliance as it does of its own operations, which consist only of flights from Johannesburg to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Perth. Flights to Singapore on Singapore Airlines and Bangkok on Thai Airways from Joberg are shown. A fan of flights from Hong Kong to Seoul on Asiana and several Japanese cities on All Nippon fill up northeastern Asia. The Qantas flight to Sydney is shown, which weaves into a network of Air New Zealand flights to Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

Cathay Pacific: System Timetable, Winter 1989-90

It's hard to make out all the various cities in Cathay Pacific's network in the immediate years following the return of Hong Kong to China, but it is interesting to note that a non-stop to Manchester was added to the network for this 1989-90 winter, a route which does not exist today. Port Moresby was added to the route to Auckland, and network stretched into the Indian Ocean with a flight to Mauritius.  A single trans-Pacific service links San Francisco, via Vancouver.

Royal Brunei Airlines Network, 2011

Since it first started flight to London in 1990, Royal Brunei Airlines has offered something of an alternative to the traditional Kangaroo Route choices, with its links to several Australian cities (but not, apparently, Sydney) via the tiny Sultanate's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, and Dubai to Heathrow Terminal 4. There are even links to five cities in the British Isles, courtesy of BMI, as shown in the cartouche at lower left. The airline serves ten regional cities as well, from Shanghai to Singapore to Surabaya. This item was found via the Daily Mail online, in some sort of promotion with department store John Lewis.

Air Pacific Network, 2004

Another colorful map from a South Pacific carrier, this Air Pacific, the state airline of Fiji, displays a fan of spectral ribbons across the vast ocean, from Vancouver and Tokyo to Canberra and Christchurch, all via Nadi, the international airport Vita Levu. Tokyo, Vancouver, Wellington and Canberra have all been cancelled: this map was during a very brief period when Air Pacific flew to the Australian capital, which currently enjoys no international services.

Air Vanuatu Network, 2011

Following the previous post, this later, glossier map of Air Vanuatu shows a smaller airline, with no apparent service to Fiji or the Solomon Islands, but the same network to New Caledonia, New Zealand, and New South Wales. The flight from Espiritu Santo to Brisbane has endured. Auckland is for some reason misplaced at the center of the country.

Air Vanuatu Network, August 2009

The entire expanse of Air Vanuatu's reach, from the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji, as well as New Zealand and the main cities of Australia, the country's main economic patrons. This includes a nonstop from Espiritu Santo Island to Brisbane.

Polynesian Airlines Network, c.2001

A rainbow-colored route map for Polynesian Airlines from about ten years ago, via the wonderfully strange, half-dormant website, World of Islands. Its not explicitly clear what the dotted lines refer to, but perhaps Air Pacific or other carriers operated these intra-Antipode routes on Polynesian's behalf.

At the time, Polynesian, founded in 1959 and one of the dominant South Pacific carriers, ran a very prestigious Apia-Honolulu-Los Angeles service, which reportedly bankrupted the company. Sadly, today the airline is relegated to domestic service as Virgin Samoa (formerly Polynesian Blue) runs long-haul flights to Australia and New Zealand. The only service northwards is to Honolulu on Air Pacific, the Fijian carrier.

Scheduled Passenger Routes from Hawaii, 1971: West of the Dateline

Examining the left-hand side of the same map from the previous post, a State Department of Transportation map from 1971-2. There are many flights between Hawaii and Australia, connecting nonstop from Honolulu to Brisbane and Sydney, as well as Auckland, while connecting New Caledonia and Fiji along the way and with Melbourne as an onward destination. The  trans-Micronesia service is shown in special green, dipping down to Nauru, with a major west Pacific base at Guam, which connects onward to Manila, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Tokyo and Okinawa are served non-stop.

Its somewhat difficult to discern which routes certain airlines, listed above, served at the time, especially BOAC and VARIG; Pan Am likely served many of these flights.

Hawaiian Airlines Routes, 1990

Just three years after the last post, this next, much more muted feature from fabulous Departed Flights shows Hawaiian Airlines having dropped Anchorage and Portland, but otherwise expanded dramatically across the Pacific, reaching Australia and New Zealand while also adding a Polynesian fan of Tahiti and the Cook Islands, along with Guam in Micronesia. Sadly today, most of these exotic island destinations are gone, with the airline only resuming Sydney service and only next year returning to Auckland, and still serving Pago Pago and Papeete. 

Aircalin Network, 2011

A much sleeker interface greets the visitor to Aircalin's 2011 website, compared to the grainy réseau of just three years earlier, shown in the previous post. The only major addition to the network is Seoul, suggesting the increasing importance of Asian visitors to the archipelago. Wallis and Futuna are shown as separate nodes, showing a link between the two fellow francophone islands.

Beyond this, the carte includes cooperative networks with (unspecified) Australian and New Zealand carriers to other antipodean cities via Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland, demonstrating how easily Aircalin's network can be reached via these gateways. The new map also shows more distant destinations at its edges: Honolulu, Ho Chi Minh Ville, and Hong Kong; Shanghai and Singapour, Bali and Bangkok, and even Los Angeles, suggesting an expansionary eye toward linking New Caledonia with California, and China.

Aircalin Network, c.2008

Aircalin, the international airline of New Caledonia, France's largest overseas department in the Pacific, stretched from Auckland and Australia to Asia in 2008 in this grainy .jpg sourced from this website.

Japan saw multiweekly A330 flights to Osaka and Tokyo. More regionally Aircalin linked together the other French possessions in the Pacific, from Papeete, Tahiti, in Polynesia, to tiny Wallis et Futuna north of Fiji, as well as nearby Vanuatu (now independent, once an Anglo-French condominium). The major cities of Australia and New Zealand, primary sources of tourists, were also reached.

Air Nauru Network, c.2006

A sketchy .gif pixellation of the terminal Air Nauru system in 2006, its last year of operations, via this website. With a recently-leased B737-400, stretching at least occasionally as far as Manila and Melbourne (although not Hong Kong or Honolulu) and some sort of cooperative arrangement with Qantas (note how Sydney is bypassed), Air Nauru could almost be thought to have been re-peaking from to its previous glory days on the 1980s, when it was the great connecting carrier of the equatorial Pacific. Unfortunately, just mere months after this map was computer-drawn, the single jet was seized by Australian authorities at Melbourne over a tax dispute. Air Nauru was finished.

Air Nauru: Tenth Anniversary Stamps, 1980

The microscopic Republic of Nauru, with its mere few thousand citizens, has had few indigenous subjects for philately, so its little wonder that the national airline was featured at least once. Air Nauru was in its fully glory at aged ten, fueled by phosphate profits and stretching as far away as Auckland, Melbourne, and Hong Kong, but Japan and Honolulu.

Tarawa, Kiribati was just one of at least twenty Pacific islands that the Boeing B727 and B737 jets touched down on, from Guam to Fiji, Okinawa to Rarotonga, Noumea to Niue. Air Nauru was in many cases (such as Tarawa) one of the few, or only, scheduled services to link these far-flung atolls to the outside world.

The airline's fate sank with that of its nation, as Nauru declined from tiny, wealthy island republic to shady haven for tax cheats and Afghan refugees. The airline declined from a fleet of more than five aircraft to a single jet, which was seized by Australian authorities for unpaid taxes in December 2006.