Air Afrique: The schedule from Abidjan, 1990 (continued)

Continuing with Air Afrique's summer 1990 schedule from Abidjan, originally posted on Airline Memorabilia. Here is the second page of the Abidjan schedule:

Alphabetically, the index begins with non-stop flights on UTA French Airlines to Nice on the weekends. Flights within the West African network, to Nouakchott, Ouagadougou,  Pointe Noire (via Brazzaville), and Yaoundé operate just a few times per week on an A-300.

There are near-daily connections to Paris, either in-directly via another Air Afrique city, or direct once weekly on a DC-10, in addition to the non-stop UTA services to CDG.

Interestingly, there is a single Thursday non-stop to Rio de Janeiro on-board VARIG listed. Other flights, to Rome, Stockholm, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna, Washington (connecting at JFK on Pan Am) and Zürich. The section on Accra starts with flights to Brussels.

Scheduled Passenger Routes from Hawaii, 1971: West of the Dateline

Examining the left-hand side of the same map from the previous post, a State Department of Transportation map from 1971-2. There are many flights between Hawaii and Australia, connecting nonstop from Honolulu to Brisbane and Sydney, as well as Auckland, while connecting New Caledonia and Fiji along the way and with Melbourne as an onward destination. The  trans-Micronesia service is shown in special green, dipping down to Nauru, with a major west Pacific base at Guam, which connects onward to Manila, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Tokyo and Okinawa are served non-stop.

Its somewhat difficult to discern which routes certain airlines, listed above, served at the time, especially BOAC and VARIG; Pan Am likely served many of these flights.

Pan Am: New York-Kano, 1956

Kano has been discussed before. Its interesting as it is still a large and important city, the principal commercial center and airport in Northern Nigeria, but its international services have declined (partly due to the rise of Abuja to the south). KLM, MEA, and Saudi Arabian apparently still fly there. According to this first day cover, Pan Am connected Kano with New York in 1956, although this service did not seem to last long.

Pan Am: The African Routes, 1967

Pan American's African branch was never too thick. However, throughout its history, the airline flew to several dozen African cities. This map, with its two reaches from West Africa to East Africa and Southern Africa, shows the most common Pan Am run across the continent. Part of a handsome, corporate-production route atlas of the kind unknown today.

Pan Am: Miami to Africa, 1941

More history of the Cape Verde coast as global node. This particular envelope from December 6, 1941, celebrates Pan Am's first arrival in Bathurst, Gambia (today Banjul). More broadly, the deep, dynamic illustration shows a flying boat clipper which originates at Miami and reaches the equator via San Juan and Port of Spain, calling at Belem and Natal in Brazil, before crossing the ocean and reaching Bathurst. From there it appears to extend to Lagos and on to Leopoldville. As with the previous post, Dakar did not get the glory.

Pan Am: New Orleans-Managua

Speaking of New Orleans's international service, here is a relic from June 13, 1943: Pan Am from New Orleans to Managua. Long before it was overshadowed by Houston, Atlanta, and even Memphis, New Orleans was a major gateway to Mesoamerica, as this attests.

Delta: New Orleans-London; National: New Orleans-Amsterdam

New Orleans apparently had a big year in 1978, when the deregulation bonanza seems to have brought the Crescent City two European routes: Delta to London (Gatwick) and National's DC-10 Sunjet non-stop to Amsterdam (connecting the world's two lowest-lying airports. What fun). Its only conjecture to say that it would have been half European tourists and have Shell oil personnel on board. Timetablist is unable to confirm whether the Delta flight was non-stop;might easily have been through Atlanta. By the following year, National had a sizable trans-atlantic presence, and appeared to serve Paris from New Orleans as well.

New Orleans was a significant node in Pan Am's connection from the Central US to the Caribbean and Central America, but that's all gone now. For a time pre-Katrina, the all that was left was a weekly TACA connection to Honduras, the occasional charter to Cancun. Also, British Airways did for a time serve The Big Easy on its way to Mexico City. The author of the Louis Armstrong Airport Wikipedia article summarizes this history quite nicely.

Pan Am: The African Routes, 1971

Just ten years later, at the morning of the Jet Age, this frontispiece from Pan American's New Horizon World Guide shows its network of Clippers stretching across North, West, East, Central, and Southern Africa.

Pan Am: The African Route, 1960

This is from Pan American's New Horizons World Guide from 1960, showing its single African route: Dakar-Monrovia-Accra-Leopoldville-Johannesburg. Passengers to and from Dakar connect to either Lisbon and Europe or Pan American's home base at Idlewild.

Pan Am: New York-Monrovia (Cargo)

While this site is mainly concerned with passenger service, a higher priority is service to Monrovia. This envelope follows the format of Pan Am's other first day covers, with the outline map in the lower-left corner, showing a jet connecting New York and Monrovia on April 30, 1963.

Pan Am: New York-Monrovia

A set of Liberian stamps celebrating service between Monrovia-Robertsfield and New York's Idlewilde Airport. Not entirely sure if this is a "first day cover" of the service; the image is small and difficult to read, but its at least visible as a Pan Am clipper. The service would run along various routes until about 1986, with Pan Am withdrew from Africa entirely.

Pan Am: New York-Conakry

A nice pair, one first-day cover from the US, showing Pan American's map emblem on the envelope, which seemed to be a recurring first-day cover theme. The other is a handsome pair of Guinean Stamps, with a beautiful, colorful illustration of Pan Am's DC-6 gracefully hugging the African coast on 30 July 1963. The Pan Am cover helpfully points out that the service was routed via Lisbon, as the majority of Pan Am's African routes were prior to the jet age.

Pan Am: New York-Entebbe

Could it be that Pan Am's flights from New York to Entebbe were really "direct", as in non-stop? It doesn't seem likely, as even as late as the 1980s, when Pan Am had all jet-service around the world, its African flights stopped in Dakar and Monrovia first. However, if the graphic emblem is to be believed, the 1966 service did utilize a B707.

Pan Am: New York-Dakar-Monrovia-Abidjan-Cotonou-Douala

Although Delta Air Lines is rapidly expanding across Africa, and United Airlines is set to begin service to Accra and Lagos in May 2010, there are still so many cities which Pan Am served that have yet to see the return of US jets. Just look at this First-day cover, celebrating the launch of Pan Am's New York-Dakar-Monrovia (Robertsfield)-Abidjan-Cotonou-Douala service on 16 May, 1965. What a golden age.