Air Liban to Europe and Africa, c.1952

 Prior to becoming Middle East Airlines, the flag carrier of Lebanon was known as Air Liban. Formed in 1945, it quickly expanded across Southwest Asia, Europe and into Africa as reflected in the destination list on this vintage brochure: Near East destinations include Aleppo and Baghdad, and fourth city is listed Jerusalem—a somewhat remarkable historical phenomenon, although this likely references the old Atarot Airport, at the time located in the Jordanian-annexed West Bank. Regardless, "Jerusalem" makes its Timetablist debut here. 

Further into the Gulf extends a spine of Jeddah—Dhahran—Doha—Kuwait; it is important to realize that, long before the rise of thee Gulf super-carriers, MEA/Air Liban was the primary airline of the Arab World, as its expansive name implies. 

Looking Westward, Air Liban ran its "swift Super DC-6C planes" to Nicosia, Ankara, Istanbul and to its only Western European capital, Paris, while send a second route to Cairo and Tripoli, with its most southernly service across the Red Sea to Khartoum, then spanning the vast Sahara to reach Kano, Lagos, Accra, Abidjan, and finally terminating at Dakar. This unusual number of West African destinations linked the Syrian-Lebanese commercial diaspora of coastal urban West Africa to their homeland. 

ALIA: The Royal Jordanian Airline Network, 1984-85

A loose cartography to show the route system of Alia: The Royal Jordanian Airline in the mid-1980s, when the carrier had ambitiously reached four continents, but had not yet been rebranded as simply "Royal Jordanian' —the Alia was the name of the King Hussein's daughter, the Princess, a very curious nomenclature for a commercial carrier. 

The map spreads out the many European destinations served from Amman, as many as 15 apparently, including the somewhat unusual cities such as Belgrade and Bucharest; although these lesser cities likely saw the B707 and B727, at the time, the L-1011 was becoming the workhorse of the fleet. 

Most notably, Alia carried the crown of Hashemite throne to distant Chicago and distant Los Angeles, via Vienna, as well as New York via Amsterdam, possibly utilizing the airline's B747-200s, of which there were as many as three during the 1980s. Today the successor carrier still serves O'Hare, non-stop with debasing graphite-grey B787 Dreamliners.

Alia offered a comprehensive schedule across its immediate region, from Tripoli and Tunis in North Africa to Beirut and Damascus in the Levant to the many capitals of the Gulf—note that the map once again takes its liberties, showing the Doha-Muscat link leaping to the left, making room for the Dubai-Karachi connection below. The two east Asian services, nonstops to Bangkok and Singapore, are set apart. Looking closely, the airline's sole domestic destination, Aqaba, is shown directly below the hub.

Gulf Air Network, c.1975

 

The wingspan of the Golden Falcon of Gulf Air reached broadly across the Eurasian continent in the mid-1970s, emblazoned on the tail of the consortium airline's new quad-jet VC-10s as they roared across the skies from Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha to London Heathrow in the west and from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Muscat to Bombay and Karachi in the east. 

The duality of this network map is not fully explained, as an abundance of other regional cities, from Salalah to Shiraz, Beirut to Bandar Abbas to Baghdad, Amsterdam to Athens to Amman, are shown with dotted lines and smaller outline labels. These are presumably secondary routes, served by the airline's F-27 Friendships and BAC 1-11s, first purchased in 1970, although presumably the larger planes flew the routes from the home bases to Paris and onward to Amsterdam—such non-stop service was made possible by the imminent arrival of the airline's new flagship L-1011 aircraft. It's not specified what airport is referenced by "Cyprus" but presumably this is Larnaca. 

To the right, the map is repeated in Arabic, although the secondary lines are not dotted, making the Middle East—Paris—Amsterdam route clearer, and curiously Cyprus is excluded altogether from that corresponding map.

Saudia: The Domestic Network, c.1979

Unclear who was the intended audience of this 1979 print advert for Saudia. Were there really that many potential customers who needed to reach innermost Arabia but seek an alternative to the Saudi state carrier? The airline's golden key promised to unlock such likely remote arid outposts as Abha, Badana, Bisha, Gassim, Gurayet, Hail, Jouf, Najran, Qausimah, Rafha, Sharourah, Turaif and Wedjh (all premiering on Timetablist with this post). No town in Saudi Arabia is more than 70 miles from a modern jet airport, the airline boasts.

Handsome cartography all the same, with the watercolor effect of receding waves (notice the absence of Africa at left) and indicating the mountainous regions of Hejaz, Yemen and Iran.

Lufthansa Cargo: Dhahran-Dubai-Hong Kong, 1991

Normally, Timetablist limits its interest to commercial passenger schedules of past and present, but as yesterday's post brought up the topic of Lufthansa's history of hopping within the Gulf region, here is a envelope marking the commencement of a global freight route wrapping around the belt of Asia, from Frankfurt to Hong Kong via Dhahran and Dubai.

The B747F is shown twice, however both illustrations are rather distorted, particularly on the elongated profile on the cartoonish cancellation stamp. The other aligns the ailerons with the outline of an unspecified mosque-and-minarets profile. Note also the petroleum production emblazoned on the Saudi Arabian postage stamp.

Lufthansa: Karachi-Kuwait, December 1990

Because regional routes within foreign continents is increasingly rare in the 21st century, it is remarkable how extensive such globe-spanning was even in recent decades for the handful of world-dominating flag carriers, Lufthansa chief among them. Here, an A310 which surely calls Frankfurt home, is headed to Kuwait from Karachi.  Its very difficult to discern the date of this envelope, as the ink missed the paper just where the year is printed. LH633 would at other times be routed Karachi-Riyadh and Riyadh-Muscat, and Dubai-Dhahran, in many instances with a DC-10. Presently, however, LH633 is not an active flight number, and currently the German airline is not seen at Karachi.

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

Saudia: The International Route Map, 1983

A previously unfeatured item from the incredible memorabilia collection of Flickr user caribb. Saudi Arabian green colors all this map's continents, of which Saudia had reached four as of the end of 1982 and the beginning of 1983, the period for which this map was created. Dhahran, Jeddah and Riyadh were the main hubs, as they are today.

Saudia's deafening L-1011s and jumbo B747s reached from Manila to New York. Saudia, which was rebranded Saudi Arabian Airlines in the late 1990s, still serves Kano and Khartoum, but is absent from Mogadishu-- an unusual destination even then. Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Washington, Hong Kong and Guangzhou are some of the destinations added since then. (the next post will detail the European destinations).

Special thanks to Flickr user caribb for the create commons license to repost.

Saudia: Eastbound Intercontinental Schedule, October 1969

The airline of Saudi Arabia was still diminutive in 1969, but already had a presence on a prestigious passage: London to Bombay, via the Kingdom.

On Sundays, a Saudia B707 left Heathrow and stopped in Frankfurt. From whence it flew directly to Dhahran, finally arriving early Monday in Riyadh. That same Monday, a second Saudia B707 left London and arrived after 1AM on Tuesday in Jeddah. The Frankfurt-Geneva-Jeddah axis was covered on Thursdays. A BOAC plied London to Jeddah direct on a roaring VC-10. On Mondays and Fridays, jets left Jeddah for Karachi and Bombay, stopping at Riyadh and Dhahran.

Tickets could be purchased at any BOAC or TWA office worldwide.

KLM: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

KLM Royal Dutch Air Lines fleet of shiny DC-8 jetliners whisked travelers from Kuala Lumpur east to Manila, north to Beirut and Athens, west to Houston and Mexico City.

Czechoslovak Airlines: Service from Cairo, c.1958

An advert from a trade publication for the shipping industry of Cairo, sometime in the late 1950s, showing what was surely the pride of the Czechoslovak fleet: a Soviet-era Tu-104 jet, able to whisk Egyptians either north to the capitals of Europe via Prague: London, Paris, Moscow, or on a trans-Asian route: Dhahran—Bombay—Rangoon—Phnom Penh—Djakarta (none of which Czech Airlines serves today).