Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: North America

As with other continents and corners of the globe, Qatar Airways has differentiated itself from its Gulf rival Emirates but reaching cities not served by the Dubai-based megacarrier. Of the 11 North American destinations, four of them: Montreal, Miami, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, are not served by Emirates. Philadelphia and Miami can be explained primary due to Qatar's partnership with American Airlines through the oneWorld alliance, although this is increasingly under strain.

Qatar just celebrated 5 years in Montreal, which sees carriers from across the near Arab world, including Royal Jordanian, Royal Air Maroc, Air Algerie and Tunisair, as the city is a major destination for global migrant,s especially from the francophone world. Atlanta was an interesting choice for Qatar's tenth U.S. city, a destination made not in cooperation with, but more in spite of hometown Delta Air Lines. 

Conversely, it is interesting to see that Qatar is absent from such primary gateways as San Francisco and Toronto. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: The Americas

Etihad operates some of the longest non-stop flights in the world from Abu Dhabi to the Western Hemisphere, as shown here on the left-hand side of its route map from last fall. While the 11 to 13 hour runs to New York JFK and Washington Dulles (launched in 2013) are hardly short-haul, it is the airline's 16 to 17 hour jaunts to California that remain atop the rankings: Abu Dhabi—Los Angeles, commenced in October 2013, is 5th, Abu Dhabi—San Francisco is 10th. Abu Dhabi—Dallas is 15th. It should also be noted that Etihad was the first of the ME3 to serve Chicago, first reaching the mid-American metropolis in 2009 as its second U.S. city—half a decade before Emirates and Qatar finally served O'Hare.

As with the Europe map, the North American cartography is a confusing jumble of codeshare connections, a knot of blue lines nearly obliterating the destinations at Etihad actually does serve. 

The single South American route, the non-stop to Sao Paulo, gives the airline and its home airport claim to six continent service, one of only a few airlines and airports that can boast such breadth. It was therefore all the more surprising that Etihad has been forced to retreat from the market: the last non-stop between Abu Dhabi at Brazil will fly in late March, a stunning defeat for a Gulf megacarrier.

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The American Routes

Yesterday's post introduced the latest Emirates route map, with its gorgeously-tessalated, neo-Fullerian projection. Left off that first post was this second page, showing the Americas exclusively (and a large swath of the southeast Pacific, interestingly). 

Emirates increasing number of routes to North America are some of the longest commercial flights in the world, especially the ultra-long haul Dubai—San Francisco and Dubai—Los Angeles runs, whose twice daily A380 services are scheduled in at a staggering 16 hours 15 minutes, currently the world's sixth longest non-stop flight, followed by Dubai—Houston, which is ninth. Dubai—Dallas is 17th, and Dubai—Fort Lauderdale is 24th, and Dubai—Orlando is 28th. 

Even though it doesn't rank as highly, the Sao Paulo non-stops generally top 15 hours, the Buenos Aires link an even longer haul. Indeed, the shortest route on this map is the controversial fifth-freedom Milan—New York JFK service. 

While Emirates continues to add U.S. gateways (as was discussed in posts earlier this month), it is interesting to note that several large cities have yet to be reached, particularly Mexico City but also Vancouver and Montreal (which is served by Qatar and Turkish Airlines). Miami was recently bypassed for Ft. Lauderdale, a curious development in American intercontinental aviation which has been covered extensively earlier this month.

The map does include the Dubai—Panama route, which at 17.5 hours would soar in the rankings of ultra-long haul services. However, this launch has been delayed for almost a year and the exact start date has not been set, it is both drawn on the system and featured in the box at lower right, which also announces the start of flights to Bologna and Bamako—the table itself an index of the extraordinary breadth and growth of this behemoth airline. 

Qatar Airways: Non-stop to the United States, January 2015

A window screen advert, shields the Qatar Airways ticket office in the Seef quarter of Manama, Bahrain from the blazing sun. A glossy, angled photo of "The Bean," Anish Kapoor's cloudgate sculpture in Millennium Park, Chicago, advertises Qatar's "5-star journeys to the USA" from Doha to Chicago, Houston, New York, and Washington. Philadelphia, Miami and Dallas announced in non-alphabetical order (but perhaps order of inaugural route?) in the second row— "launching soon" the asterisk denotes the still-large fine print. The latter three came on in the succeeding months; Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta were later added in 2016. 

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.

Qatar Airways to Chicago, April 2013

Qatar Airways, continuing its rapid, worldwide expansion by adding a fourth destination in the United States last month: Chicago O'Hare. The ultra-long range B777-300ER will ply the 13-hour route just three time per week until June, when the service will become daily, in time for the scorching season in both places. The move comes well-ahead, but presumably related to, Qatar's admission to the OneWorld alliance, which will involve greater coordination with American Airlines, which of course has a huge hub at ORD.

Qatar joins Etihad Airways as the second of the three fast-growing Gulf super-carrier to land at O'Hare. Now also a daily service, Etihad's extended range A340-500s have been descending over Lake Michigan since September 2009. Interestingly, this leaves Emirates, the mack-daddy of Middle Eastern mega-airlines, as the only one of the three rivals to not service the midwestern metropolis, despite serving smaller, secondary US hubs such as Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle for several years.

Qantas from Sydney to Dallas: The World's Longest Flight (In Coach)

In January 2012 the Wall Street Journal's Middle Seat column featured a special report on flying coach for over 15 hours nonstop between Sydney, Australia and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas aboard Qantas. While perhaps not the longest existing flight in the world, especially in historical terms (Singapore's nonstop to New York was far longer), the article featured an interactive log of how the author passed the time--mostly watching inane television.

America West Airlines Network, December 1991

Another vintage gem from the now-deserted Departed Flights blog: America West Airlines System Route Map from December, 1991, at the extent of the airline's independence, with its Pony Express-styled typography but with a mature presence from Boston to Burbank and a single, exotic pan-Pacific hop from its Las Vegas hub and Phoenix fortress to Honolulu and on to Nagoya, Japan. Today, America West has adopted the styling of its take-over target USAirways, and does not fly to Asia.

Thai Airways International: Worldwide Network, 1985

Although not the size and reach of the present day, Thai Airways at the end of the 1980s already at the impressive reach, as the sharp angled geometry of this unique route map so dashingly illustrates: from the half-hexagon of the Tokyo-Seattle-Dallas/Fort Worth jaunt, to the fingers spreading across the Middle East, although these hit on contemporary destinations such as Riyadh, Dhahran, and Kuwait instead of the 21st century trifecta of Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

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

JAL to America, Winter 2002

This second JAL page reveals more history of American Airlines than Japan Air Lines. This table shows American's erstwhile transpacific routes from San Jose and Seattle to Narita, as well as the ill-fated Osaka-Dallas/Fort Worth service. JAL is, sadly, planning to retreat from its Tokyo-Sao Paulo service in the future as it deals with its financial woes.

British Airways, the North American routes, Autumn 1999

The Trans-atlantic routes are the lifeblood of BA, but its interesting to note that a handful of these cities no longer see jets from London. These include Pittsburgh, which was once a major midwestern hub and is today eerily quiet, and Detroit, from which sadly BA recently withdrew as an unprofitable destination. More interesting are the sunbelt boomtowns, such as Charlotte, which is still connected to Europe by USAirways, as well as Phoenix and San Diego, which despite their growing size seem to lack the cosmopolitan need for a connection to Heathrow.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: London

London has been American's pride of network since before it purchased TWA's Heathrow rights a decade before. This map is a bit deceptive, in that it shows a completely random spread of cities beyond Britain which have never been served by American, but seem to be OneWorld connections with British Airways or Gulf Air, from Teeside to Doha, Leeds to Muscat.

At the right are the US cities graced with a flagship nonstop, all of which enjoy the same privilege today, including Raleigh-Durham and the other complex hubs previously discussed. However, what is also deceiving about this graphic is that it does not specify which cities were crowned with Heathrow rights under Bermuda II rules and which had to shuffle into lowly Gatwick.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: Boston Logan

Boston has never been a true hub for any airline, other than a feeder to a handful of European airlines or a catchment for high-value local passengers. American's array in 2002 included more code-shares than mainline services, mostly long-range transcontinental runs; connections to hubs; and its flagship transatlantic routes, often on glistening silver B777s. Links via other carriers to Canada, Down-east, the Islands are shown; all of this intersperses at right, with Bermuda, New York, Paris, London, Halifax and Burlington shown in counter-clockwise arrangement from 4 to 1 as being equidistant from Logan. Islip, Ottawa, Vancouver and Chicago are all arrayed from 11 to 8.

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.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: LAX

Los Angeles has never been a dedicated first-tier hub for American, but the airline continues to profit from wealthy origin-and-destination traffic to far corners of its network. Shown here is a short-lived LAX-Seoul service, the only Eagle-emblazoned trans-Pacific flight; other Asian cities are linked by other carriers, as are codeshare offerings to the South Pacific with Qantas. Silver jets spread their wings  on two direct flights to the Hawaiian Islands. A measure of Meso-american non-stops links Mexican leisure destinations and capital cities. The long-range flagship services link L.A. to London and Paris.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002

Continuing with yesterday's dull, monochrome presentations from a US carrier, here we have a surprisingly unique and interesting graphical explanation of American Airlines's massive system. Shown here are non-stops from its hubs (or connecting complexes, as it calls them here) and its focus cities, such as Boston, which features year-round service to Gatwick and CDG. Note the service to Stockholm, which didn't last. American has yet to direct away from its cubicle-farm aesthetic, yet it must be given small credit for spatial arrangement with which it articulates the network.

Following posts will focus on each sub-networks web of destinations.