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.

Oman Air Route Network, December 2015: The Westward Routes

A completely thorough review of contemporary Gulf carriers must include the second-tier but rapidly growing Oman Air, which has swiftly moved from a minor regional carrier into a long-haul competitor. This spherical route map, from the airline's Wings of Oman in-flight magazine published at the end of 2015, shows six non-stops to Europe, operated variously by A330 and B787 aircraft, as well as the usual raft of regional destinations. Codeshares to Amsterdam, Istanbul, and Addis Ababa are marked in orange. 

What might be most notable about the airline's westward network are the pair of Sub-Saharan routes, both to Tanzania. An interesting fact: the capital of the Oman Empire was moved in the 19th century  Zanzibar, and there is enough trade and cultural links between ancient Muscat and the Swahili coast to maintain flights to the semi-autonomous island as well as the East African country's capital, Dar Es Salaam. Since this issue was published, Oman Air has announced new non-stops to Nairobi and Manchester. 

Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: The GCC and South America

Like Etihad and Emirates, the ultra-long haul routes to South America are Qatar Airways rarest expeditions. A single Doha—São Paulo—Buenos Aires route makes Hamad International Airport a six-continent hub. 

Given the dearth of Latin American routes, this corner of the route map features an eye-glass inset of the GCC, showing Qatar's numerous routes to the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, which connect on Qatar to an impressive eight destinations, including Hofuf, which premieres on the Timetablist here for the first time. 

Muscat Airport: Arrivals on 12 December, 2015

An unfortunately blurry image of the mid-day arrivals screens for Muscat International Airport on 12 December 2015. Dominated, naturally, by Oman Air, with multiple incoming flights from nearby Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, and Makkah, and a spread of subcontinental landings from Delhi, Chennai, Karachi, Colombo, Bangalore, Jaipur, Lahore, Calicut and Male. Longer range operations such as Bangkok and the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur operation arrive at about 1PM, with one of the few domestic flights, from Salalah, come in twice that afternoon. Air Arabia to Sharjah and flydubai put low-cost, short-haul operations on the board. 

Oman Air: Worldwide Network, 2011.

What had been a small, regional start-up from one of the last members of the original Gulf Air consortium has, since a total transformation in 2009, become a rival in service and reach to the great supercarriers of the Gulf. The makeover was marked by a logographic move away from the flag-motif livery to a still-distinctive but less heraldic blue, white and gold scheme.

While not nearly as global as the six-continent networks of Emirates, Etihad, or Qatar Airways, the map and image above show Oman's A330s reaching as far as London and Bangkok ,with staggeringly luxurious cabins. The next two posts will index the carrier's growing Middle East and Subcontinental networks of the above map.