El Al: Boston to Tel Aviv Non-stop, June 2015

In just the last four years, starting in about 2012, Boston's Logan International Airport has seen one of the most astonishing periods of international traffic growth in the history of American aviation. In a startlingly compacts period of time, beginning with JAL's dreamliner service to Narita in April 2012, Logan's somewhat pedestrian terminal E has seen an astonishing addition of new tail fins—especially those running long- and ultra-long haul intercontinental flights from New England: Hainan, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, COPA, Aeromexico, Turkish, and WOW Air. These are now being joined by Norwegian, Qatar Airways, Eurowings, Air Berlin, SAS, Thomson Airways and TAP Air Portugal, in addition to new services by Jetblue, Logan's de facto hub airline. 

Last year, in mid-2015, El Al was a somewhat unlikely participant in this onrush. The Israeli flag carrier launched a thrice-weekly B767-300 non-stop to the Holy Land gateway, Ben Gurion International Airport. This print ad, boasting a beachy scene of Tel Aviv's skyscraper-studded riviera, featured in Boston magazine ahead of the first flight. Likely paid for by Massport as part of the incitement package offered to El Al to secure and support the service. Whatever the state agency has been doing, it's been doing it right. 

Flight Connections from São Tomé & Príncipe, c.2009

A lost fragment of the internet, this orphan gif, a visual explanation of flight connections to tiny São Tomé & Príncipe, on not-particularly-recent vintage.

The microscopic archipelago is hardly a hub of anything, other than delicious and rare cocoa, but on this map it is the crossroads of the center of the map, the closest republic to where the prime meridian meets the equator. Or, at least, the Lusophone eastern hemisphere.

Luanda and Lisbon are linked, the former via TAAG Angolan Airlines, which still to this day continues on to Sal de Cabo Verde, the latter via TAP (of course) but something else called STP Airways, the acronym denoting the little-known state carrier. Lagos and Libreville are also looped in, the first via Ceiba, the Equatoguinean state carrier, the latter via something simply labelled 'air service.' How perfectly vague.

Douala in nearby Cameroon is served by SCD, an unknown acronym, which may be related to African Connection Airways, which apparently provides air service on the island which may, or may not, include Malabo, Port Harcourt, Brazzaville, Port-Gentil, Pointe-Noire and even Bangui, if its own map is to be believed. TAP is apparently re-routing its services as of July 1st via Accra.

Athens International Airport Departure Board, 10 August 2012

An hour-and-a-half's worth of activity on an August Friday morning at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens shows the contemporary extents of service out the Greek capital. Service across the Atlantic to both Toronto and Philadelphia by Air Canada and USAirways respectively, represent the long-haul, although MEA's flight to Beirut, the unusual Armavia's departure for Yerevan, and Cyprus Airways' service to Larnaca illustrate some of the varied services to the Near East that still exist out of Athens. Cyprus also offers its own service to Chania on Crete, while Star Alliance member Aegean Airlines and the still-barely-alive Olympic Air also service the many islands. Air France to Paris and Transavia to Amsterdam round out the next 90 minutes of activity.

Accra Kotoka Airport Monday Evening Departures, November 2011

Continuing from the previous post, the Monday evening departures table shows a host of intercontinental carriers leaving Accra for distant destinations in Europe and elsewhere. This includes both Kotoka's traditional standbys, KLM to Amsterdam and British Airways to London, as well as new-comers such as Emirates to Dubai at 5:30, Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, United Airlines to Washington Dulles, TAP to Lisbon, and Afriqiyah Airways to Tripoli.

Also seen here are southern hemispheric services, specifically South African Airways non-stop to Johannesburg and Air Namibia to Jo'berg via Windhoek. There are only a handful of regional departures to Lagos in the late afternoon as well as an Air Ivoire flight at 8PM to Lomé.

Brussels Airport Departure Board # 2

About an hour and half of mid-day flights fill in the bottom of the Zavantem Airport departure boarding. Everything is on schedule except its already known that Ukraine International's flight to Kiev is already running late.

Two of Brussels's handful of East Asian visitors leave in this time period: Hainan Airlines to Beijing and Thai Airways to Bangkok. At quarter past noon, a Tunisair flight to Djerba and Monastir leaves just before Aeroflot's flight to Moscow Sheremetyevo. There is also a 1:30 flight on Syrianair to Damascus via Beirut.

TAP Air Portugal Network, 1974: Detail of European Routes.

The taut routes of TAP Air Portugal's European and Atlantic network accentuate Lisbon's position betwixt the large cities of the northwestern continent and the warmer islands of the Portuguese realm in the Azores and Madeira. Much of these latter operations are now handled not by TAP but by SATA Air Açores, as well as numerous low-cost and charter carriers. Yet in the 1970s, the state carrier still undertook linking even tiny airports such as Porto Santo and Santa Maria with its mainline operations. Porto Santo and Las Palmas are no longer served today, although TAP has since expanded into eastern and southern Europe and maintains service to all of the continental cities shown here.

See the previous post for TAP's services to Africa and the Americas from the same item.

TAP Air Portugal Network, 1974

The last from this month's series from the remarkable Flight International Magazine archives available at flight global.com comes this magazine-made map of TAP Air Portugal's four-continent network on the eve of independence for the Lusophone colonies of Africa. Maputo is still Lourenço Marques, and for that matter Salisbury is not yet Harare. Interestingly, the caption of the map mention's prospects of 'improved relations with black Africa' in hopes of ending the "bulge" route which avoids banned West African airspace--similar to the constrictions that Apartheid-era South African Airways endured.

Interestingly, the mid-70s TAP is thin on its routes to Brazil, merely two destinations, with no service to Sao Paulo, Natal, Belem, or Brasilia. Recife is misspelled-- merely the most glaring cartographic fault, which lazily plots northeastern US cities far inland and European capitals at random.

Luanda appears as a major scissor station, linking the homeland with five southern African cities, as well as a boomerang connection to the tiny São Tomé e Príncipe archipelago. A handful of North Atlantic routes stretch from Lisbon and the Açores to New York, Montreal, and Boston, where large communities from Portugal, Cape Verde, and the Azores reside. Direct service to the US East Coast is offered from both Ponta Delgada (here referred to as Miguel--on the island of São Miguel) and Terceira, as SATA International still does today.

Today, TAP has more routes to Brazil, and maintains its colonial connections (but not its web of services) in Africa, but has all but abandoned the trans-Atlantic trade.

The following post will detail TAP's European services shown above.

TAP Air Portugal: The African Routes, Spring 2011

A post last week about the launch of Senegal Airlines was the first time that the city of Bissau had been featured on Timetablist. Here continues the profiling of Portuguese connections to Africa, with a portion of TAP Air Portugal's online map, showing its services to the continent.

Routes fan out from Lisbon to the capitals of former colonies: Bissau, Luanda, Maputo, and tiny Sao Tome, as well as non-Lusophone cities: Dakar at one end, Johannesburg at another, and Cairo on the far right corner. All are apparently served non-stop. At left, the many TAP routes from Lisbon and Porto to Brazil soar past Cap Vert toward South America.