East African Airways: The domestic network, c.1975

A compliment to yesterday's post from the same source, showing East African's "domestic" network to more than 20 destinations within Kenya, and Tanzania, along with a single connection to Entebbe-- strange that there is not a stronger regional network, even across Lake Victoria to Mwanza, nor even a connection to Dar Es Salaam. The links along the Swahili coast from Malindi to the Mtwara, at the border with Mozambique, are particularly comprehensive.

East African Airways International Routes, c.1974

From an obscure but delightful website comes this under-decorated, tricolored rarity: the extent of East African Airways at the height of its operations, with more than twenty cities in three continents from the Nairobi-Dar Es Salaam-Entebbe triangle.

Associates' routes increase the destinations: Accra, Lagos, Kinshasa, Seychelles, and Cairo are shown, with farther routes spanning out to East Asia, or even Australia in the case of the trans-Indian line from Mauritius. The springboard from London surely lands in America and out of Copenhagen comes a longitudinal shot suggesting a trans-polar route.

The year is a total guess, but the graphic design gives an early-to-mid-70s hint, and surely these long European routes were run by VC-10s, which were not even ordered until 1969.

East African sadly ground to a halt in '77, to be replaced by national carriers, of which Kenya Airways is unquestionably the most successful successor. That carrier has a great many more African routes but not nearly the reach into Europe as shown here some 35 years ago.

East African Airways: Domestic Routes, Summer 1974

At the height of its integration, the East African community's co-owned airline considered its routes within and between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as its "domestic" network. Note that Uganda had hardly any service, and that northern Kenya was also very underserved.

East African's operations were concentrated between Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, with a large web of services up and down the coast from Lamu and Mombasa, to Zanzibar and Dar, to Kilwa and Mtwara. From Dar, a sizable domestic operation on mainland Tanzania linked Arusha (Kilimanjaro) and Dodoma to Mwanza on Lake Victoria.

This item has been reposted from the archives of Timetable Images, a wonderful website, which very graciously allows creative commons reuse of their collections. Special thanks to Björn Larsson.

Note that the previous post detailed the other imagery from this 1974 East African Airways brochure.

East African Airways: Summer Timetable, 1974

Within the pages of this brochure, issued for midyear 1974, are two maps showing the extent of East African Airways networks. On the left, a landless, geometric schematic shows East African's services in its home region, with five routes each out of Entebbe and Nairobi to London, Athens, Frankfurt, and Zürich, with connections between them as well as onward service from Frankfurt and Rome to Copenhagen. Nairobi also had a small Asian circuit: Aden-Karachi-Bombay, whereas Dar Es Salaam's only trans-ocean operation was a Tananarive-Mauritius leg.

Cooperative services are shown to Lagos, Accra, Cairo, Tokyo and the Seychelles, with arrows pointing outwards from Blantyre, Mauritius, Seychelles, London and Copenhagen, presumably to other corners of the Globe.

This item has been borrowed from the terrific website Timetable Images, which graciously allows reposting of its collection under creative commons. Special Thanks to Björn Larsson.

The next post will detail the second panel of the map, showing East African Airway's "domestic" services.