Qantas Routes, c.1955

A map for Qantas from about the same era as the previous post, showing the predominant Australian carrier with all its five-continent reach, from Victoria to Vancouver, Johannesburg to Japan. Similar to this post from last year, also showing the pre-jet era Qantas, yet in this map the airline had spanned the Pacific to San Francisco, a route which commenced in 1954, just five year before the arrival of its first B707s.

Qantas Empire Airways Routes, 1930s

A pre-war route map of the Royal Airmail Carrier, Qantas Empire Airways, Ltd. A somewhat-complex array of route indications, for both the company's own air routes as well as that of other air companies, shows the system stretching to four continents, with the Americas absent. The trans-Indian route to Johannesburg connects with an Imperial spine across Rhodesia, East Africa and the Sudan to Cairo, from where the network merges with routes via India, then crossing Europe to terminate at London.

Closer to home, two northern lines, one touching Hong Kong, the other Manila, bank across the Orient to end at Tokyo. At far right, a web of island-hoppers fan out from Sydney to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, with lines of a different marking running across the Tasman Sea between Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand.

Qantas Empire Airways: Linking Australia and South Africa, 1952

For no particular reason, Timetablist has dusted off a series of Qantas articles.

Here is a 1952 postage commemoration, celebrating the first 'regular' linking of two of the Queen's realms, Australia and South Africa. The Qantas Empire Airways Ltd. route from Sydney crosses the antipodean vastness to Perth, then bounds westward over the Indian Ocean, refueling at the Cocos Islands, and later Mauritius, before landing on African soil at Johannesburg. The envelope is cancelled with Mauritian stamps.

South African Airways: Re-introduction of Johannesburg-Luanda, 1992

The re-introduction of intra-African services by South African Airways coincided with the gradual dismantling of the apartheid state, which culminated in the county's first democratic elections in 1994 (and would, years after that, see the airline shed its Orange-and-Blue color scheme and Afrikaaner initials). Prior to this, SAA had to skirt around jurisdictions, especially in Africa, which banned the carrier from operating in protest of the racist regime.

While marking the occasion of the return of Luanda, Angola, to the network, the airline's entire route map is displayed on the better part of the envelope. This reveals a cat's cradle strung around West Africa, and fanning out from Cape Verde to a host of European cities, as far inland as Vienna and apparently also including Manchester. Looking east, the airline apparently had to dodge Madagascar, and stop at the Seychelles before reaching southeast Asia, and the Cocos Islands before landing on the Australian continent.

A very similar map is provided two years later and shown on the next post.

Qantas: Sydney-Perth-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-Johannesburg

A delightful specimen from 1963, affixed with the postage of the Cook Islands. The pleasantly-hued map depicts the routing: Sydney-Perth-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-Johannesburg. Nowadays the route is non-stop from Sydney, and South African Airways still serves Perth from Jo'berg. Air Mauritius serves Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.