Aeromexico: The Intercontinental Routes, December 2015

 Somehow in the storied history of The Timetableist, now approaching its 11th anniversary, the great air carrier of the Federal Republic of Mexico has never been previously featured. Continuing from the previous post, it's opportune to take the fiesta stop-over in México D.F. and look at the country's remaining flag carrier as it looked in its expansionist phase of half a decade ago.

Aeromexico runs a three-continent strategy, covering the main gateways of the Americas, switching through its central Benito Juarez hub, while stretching its reach across the oceans with what is now an all-Dreamliner fleet. Of particular interest is the triplet of Trans-Pacific efforts: Mexico City—Tokyo (Narita), Monterrey—Narita, and Mexico City—Tijuana—Shanghai—Mexico City, which neatly landed Benito Juarez at exactly the same time as it took off from Pudong International. 

According to the always reliable Wikipedia, the Monterrey—Japan service was a temporary technical stop on the way from Mexico City in lieu of Tijuana. Service today is non-stop from Mexico City only. 

In early 2017, the carrier announced a second attempt to link the northern economic powerhouse of Nuevo León with Asia: a four times weekly Mexico City—Monterrey—Incheon schedule which, like the Tokyo service, would return eastbound non-stop. Apparently this proved unnecessary, as Aeromexico still served ICN as of early 2020 but only non-stop from Mexico City. 

While this peninsular service seems to have met with success—presumably due to links with SkyTeam megacarrier Korean Air—the non-stop to Shanghai and SkyTeam partner China Eastern proved less durable, as the thrice-weekly long haul was cut in mid-2019.

Iberia Network, c.1968

Reminiscent of the mid-century route map of KLM posted earlier this month, this fascinating and somewhat confusing postcard, showing Iberia's entire route system, is dated to 1968 but seems a relic of even earlier years, given its semi-medieval, hand-painted style, especially the Gothic lettering of "Mare Oceanum" set vertically on the spine of the Atlantic Ridge. It is featured for sale at this website.

The anachronism is further enhanced by the curious and highly confusing use of older names for the destinations: Nouadhibou is still shown as Port-Etienne, Dakhla in Western Sahara is referenced as Villa Cisneros, and Malabo, capital of Spain's only sub-Saharan colony, is listed as Santa Isabel, which connected to the metropole of Madrid and the large station at Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, and which has local links to mainland Bata and to Douala, in Cameroon, which is spelled with a "V" as if carved in marble. 

The mysterious is "La Guera" which today can be found almost nowhere on any maps or airline schedules. Friends at Airline Memorabilia note that this was once an outpost in Spanish Sahara, now a ghost town. It is interesting to juxtapose this item with an Iberia route-map advertised twenty years later. 

The barbell-style route system is focused, naturally, on Madrid, with feeder routes to the capitals of Western Europe,  and which appears to have non-stops to Rio de Janeiro; the hub at Tenerife likewise has a non-stop to South America, reaching landfall at Montevideo; the network then extends across the southern cone to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago and upward to Lima, then Bogotá, then Caracas, where the route turns back to the Iberian peninsula or up to the Caribbean basin at San Juan.

Lufthansa: The Worldwide Network, mid-1973

 

A recent post referenced the famous Lufthansa Spinnernetz Streckenatlas, which brought to our editorial attention that we had overlooked posting one of the more legendary graphics of Timetable History. Here is the 1973 version, courtesy of the perennially superb collection of Flickr user Caribb. 

As its base, the map is a unique, polar-focused pseudo-Azimuthal projection, showing all continents but with the Pacific meridians hooking back away from the globe's infinite edge into the north pole. The network itself is given an even more liberal representation, made up of just ten enormous trunk routes, intersecting at the center of the map over Germany (but, interestingly, not specifically mentioning any Deutsche Stadt).

Foreign and overseas destinations are listed in neat columns as these thick ribbons pass near to them: Singapore and Jakarta are skirted, not passed over, on the way to Sydney (Lufthansa left Australia decades ago). A single line from Philadelphia to Quito hits Nassau, Kingston and Bogota, meeting up with some sort of Europe–Caracas route before reaching the Andean way stations. A small offshoot links to Mexican destinations, including Monterrey and Merida, which are also of course no longer served.  The transpolar route from Germany to Anchorage makes right angle with Germany—Bangkok; a semi-circle of Hong Kong—Osaka(Itami)—Tokyo(Haneda)—Anchorage makes the grapefruit quarter.

Other images from caribb's Flickr stream show a fleet of DC-8s and 707s in heavy rotation, assisted by the brand-new B747s in the fleet. The next post will detail the African and South American Cone destinations.

As it has so many times in the past, Timetablist would like to express its appreciation for Flickr user caribb (Doug from Montreal)'s incredible collection, and to say thanks  for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Lufthansa: Lost Destinations from the Summer of 2012

For space considerations, the other (non-Russian) worldly destinations that have lost their Lufthansa patronage since 2012 have been cordoned into this separate post. There are three continents hosting less Lufthansa than before, but the only mainline European city that is out is tiny Trondheim, Norway (a first for the Timetablist here), which was curiously served once a week by an aging B737-400.

Asia has been particularly affected: the long-haul connections to Jakarta (via Singapore) and Kuala Lumpur  (via Bangkok) could consistently work. More recently, Lufthansa has lost out to the Gulf three, and curtailed its dedicated flight to Abu Dhabi, and truncated the Muscat extension of its Frankfurt-Riyadh flights (although LX243, the Zürich-Dubai-Muscat connection on SWISS listed here, still operates today).

More dire but less surprising are the loss of further African services: no news that Tripoli has been abandoned, and Pointe-Noire's petrol-club PrivatAir B737-800 service via Libreville had its run, but less happy the abandonment of once-promising Asmara and long-served Khartoum, surely and sadly uneconomic nowadays.  Also, lamentably, Caracas has likewise sunk into a less-viable abyss and receives fewer and fewer international airlines.  Lufthansa closed down its Venezuelan outpost in May this year. 

Alitalia: The Intercontinental Network, 1973

Another historic relic from Airline Memorabilia, a newsprint amp arrayed with the bright-green lines of the great Italian flag carrier of 1973. Truly "Italy's World Airline."

Unlike today, Alitalia of forty years ago was a six-continent global behemoth, with service to seven North American cities, including those like Detroit and Philadelphia that it no longer serves. Even Washington, D.C. is no longer a destination, and service to Chicago is seasonal. A further seven Latin American cities are shown, of which Lima, Caracas, Montevideo and Santiago have since been curtailed.

Somewhat Amazingly, the airline flew a wide band of routes across southern Asia to deepest Antipodea, with a twisting array of Kangaroo routes reaching both Sydney and Melbourne via Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore, and/or Bangkok, with onward service also to Hong Kong. Southeast Asia was itself reached via Karachi, Bombay, and Delhi. Exactly zero of these cities see the Italian airline today; the only Asian destination east of Iran is Tokyo.

What is perhaps even more noticeable, front-and-center of this polar projection, is the extensive African network, showering down from both Rome and Milan. A closer examination of these will be the subject of the next post.

Special Thanks as always to Airline Memorabilia for the use of the image. 

Alitalia: Worldwide service from Cairo, c.1960

A handsome vintage print ad from a cargo trade publication in Egypt from around 1960. On the corner of the shipping news, Alitalia boasts (in French of all tongues) of its sleek jet fleet, with four departures per week from Cairo to Rome aboard the state-of-the-art Caravelle VI, which passengers can also enjoy on regional connections to Beirut, Benghazi, Athens, Frankfurt, Paris, Zürich, Madrid, Tripoli, and more distant Tehran.

But most proudly, Alitalia offers ultramodern quad-jet intercontinental services across the globe: the Super DC-8 flagship shrinks the planet with services to Dakar, Karachi and Caracas, Nairobi, Bombay, Rio de Janeiro, New York and even Sydney.

Prospective passengers could visit the Alitalia offices at the Nile Hilton Hotel, or in Alexandria.

Mexicana: The Americas Unified, 1993

Mexicana boasted of its pan-American network in 1993: stretching from Santiago to San Francisco, Caracas to Chicago, Montreal to (not quite) Montevideo. As with Eastern Air Lines, it's interesting that there are no Brazilian routes: Buenos Aires is the farthest down the cone that Mexicana reached. The inclusion of secondary cities such as San Jose, California, San Antonio and Denver is interesting, compared to the absence of larger airports such as Houston, Dallas, and Washington. There are also only three capitals of Central America in the network: Guatemala, Panama, and San Jose de Costa Rica.

VARIG: South American Network, 1973

Brazil dominates commercial aviation in South America today, but four decades ago Rio de Janeiro was the primary gateway to the continent's southern cone, with Sao Paulo just another way station on the routes to Asuncion and Santiago, without, apparently so much as a link to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, at least not on VARIG. Manaus is a more important gateway, with connections to Bogota and Mexico City via Panama, as well as an Andean-hopper terminating at Iquitos, Peru. Recife and Salvador, and Belem all have flights into Europe, with the latter also linked to Cayenne and Paramaraibo, as well as Miami.

See the previous post for the global view of the VARIG route map of 1973. 

ALM Antillean Airlines Network, Date Unknown.

Via this Dutch Caribbean website comes this vintage route map of ALM Antillean Airlines. The image is undated but does not seem to be contemporary with the end of the little airline's life in 2001, so could be from anywhere between 1985-1995, although the airline had its origins in 1964. 

The "Dutch Anitllean Airlines" logo sits over the mid-Atlantic ocean, the same light blue as the nautical  labels and coordinate lines. The airline's routes spoke outward from the ABC islands, with three separate services to New York, one via St Maarten, and two to Miami via Kingston, Jamaica. Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and San Juan are also served. 

These tiny Dutch constituencies hug the massive South American coast, and likewise ALM's routes seem to skirt around the territory, particularly the southeasterly service which terminates at the Dutch-speaking Paramaraibo, Suriname, via Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Georgetown, Guyana. Other, shorter routes pierce the mainland, linking major Colombian and Venezuelan cities with the airline's home airports, Queen Beatrix International in Aruba and Hato International Airport at Willemstad, Curaçao. 

TACA Airlines Network, 2011

Fast-forward from the previous post, and tiny El Salvador has, through merger and might, grown to one of the largest inter-American airlines and virtually the only international airline between Mexico and Panama, with focus cities in San Jose, Costa Rica and Guatemala City. The Spanish fine print at the bottom of the map mentions the original state carriers, such as LASCA, NICA, Aviateca, and newly-formed national divisions such as TACA Perú, that form the modern airline. The latter is based from a sizable hub at Lima, detailed in the next post.

In North America, the airline runs as far northwest as San Francisco and as far northeast as Toronto, although an earlier route to Boston failed. New Orleans is gone, but Orlando and Dallas have been added, along with highly-prestigious and lucrative routes to Washington and New York. The next few posts looks at the growing airline in detail.

Air Panama Timetable, April to October 1985

A one-page, one-color timetable from Air Panama Internacional, midyear 1985. Mutliweekly flights connected Panama City with Bogata, Caracas, Guayaquil, Lima, and Mexico City. Nonstop service ran daily between Tocumen International Airport and Miami. According to the Wikipedia entry, Air Panama reached as far as New York's JFK, as well as Guatemala City, with a variety of aircraft, including the DC-10 and B757, prior to its demise at the time of the American invasion of Panama in 1989.

British Caledonian: The Intercontinental Routes, 1977 Detail # 2: South American Services

Long-haul operations British Caledonian concerned both Africa and South America. Services to both continents are grouped regionally-- a non-stop flight to Caracas also links Lima and Bogota. Service to Brazil, Argentina and Chile is routed via either Recife or Rio de Janeiro.

Other than the previously-posted non-stop from Gatwick to Recife, service to Brazil and the rest of the cone also stops in either Lisbon or Madrid before crossing the Atlantic, catching critical cultural, political and economic connections between the Iberian peninsula and its erstwhile colonies across Latin America.

See the previous post for discussion of the routes to Africa on the map. Thank you to the fantastic Airline Memorabilia blog for the privileges of reposting.

BWIA: Caribbean Network, 1967.

A luscious vintage brochure from British West Indian Airways from 1967, when Barbados and Trinidad were in their first years of independence, and Antigua and other islands were still colonies of the crown.

Ruler-sharp red lines span the Windward Islands, connecting each to Barbados, with its direct service to both Georgetown and New York. Several straight lines terminate at Port-of-Spain to stretch across the brow of South America.

A dense web of island-hopping services across the Leewards includes Beef Island off of Tortola, with a number of lines ending at San Juan. Trans-ocean routes from Antigua branch off toward New York JFK and Miami, with a planned pan-Atlantic route to London Heathrow just in planning, "subject to government approval" (it was soon authorized). BWIA enjoyed decades of glory before sadly coming to an end on the last day of 2006, remade as Caribbean Airlines.

Iberia: Western Hemisphere, February 2006

Iberia's Western Hemisphere routes in early 2006 showing, to a fault, its reliance on American Airlines to compliment its transatlantic system, particularly the radiating spokes out of Miami and Chicago. Its surprising that Iberia does not have more US destinations: nothing on the west coast, no service to Washington. Service to Boston's Logan airport has commenced since this time. Its Latin American links are proficient, but not over-abundant.

Over all, this cartography suffers from an extreme over-inclusiveness of code-share routes from American Airlines. This is further complicated by Iberia's historic base at Miami, which facilitated onward connections in Latin America. Its hard to discern among all these red lines just what IB metal serves which cities.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: Miami

If there is one region where American Airlines unquestionably dominates, it is Latin America. This bland 2002 map of American's Miami Complex shows a showering spray of routes, at lower left touching each vertebrae in the Andean spine, from the Yucatan to Tierra del Fuego, with neat vertical rows of Leeward and Windward destinations at right and lower center, with the remainder of South American supercities at bottom. A dotted line shows the codeshare with South African Airways from Miami to Cape Town and Jo'berg. London, Paris and Madrid are also served non-stop.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: Dallas/Fort Worth

DFW: American's headquarters hub and its southern transcontinental supercomplex. An astounding number of domestic non-stops, from a long vertical row down the California coast to a matching column on the eastern seaboard, and an arch spanning the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Canada. At bottom, a diagonal curve of Mexican cities is shown, with a more random array of subtropical cities below this, including Belize, Panama, Lima, Santiago, Caracas, and Sao Paulo. Both Osaka and Tokyo are connected directly at far left, with four European cities: London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Manchester served non-stop at upper right.

United Air Lines: South America and Europe, 1999/2000

Two dull, monochrome, newspaper-thin, facsimile-bland maps showing United Airlines's destinations in Europe and South America during the 1999/2000 Winter season. Düsseldorf has since been dropped (its somewhat surprisingly how unsuccessful decentralization of US-German flights has been, see Lufthansa to Berlin, Delta to Stuttgart, and Emirates to Hamburg for other examples). Also United remains a presence to Brazil and Argentina, but has retreated from the Mesoamerican and Andean capitals shown here.

Time Magazine: New Routes, April 2007

World aviation was burgeoning so quickly, and reflecting globalization's new realities, that Time Magazine featured a few in April 2007. Two are for Emirates: to Houston and Sao Paulo, one was Austrian's service to Erbil, one was from Greenland to Baltimore, and finally Iran Air from Tehran to Caracas.