Air Afrique: Systemwide Timetable, July 1975

Timetablist's Air Afrique Week continues: this copiously-detailed but rather low-tech brochure was published in July 1975, showing the entire Air Afrique network at the time, along with lots of other statistics not normally provided to the passenger, such as Finances, Traffic Results, and IATA certification details--perhaps this was for corporate purposes.

Dakar and Abidjan are clearly the main stations, but N'djamena, Cotonou, Lomé, Douala, and Niamey all have direct service across the Sahara to Europe. Possibly Bobo Dioulasso and Ouagadougou have non-stops to the Metropole as well--if the map has a major drawback, it is difficult to judge which routes connect where in many cases, and a great number of cities are included for reference but are not part of the network. The next post details these destinations and the northern portion of the map.

Air Afrique: Honorary Flight Covers, 1962 and 1966

Two tremendous first day covers from La Republique de Cote D'Ivoire for Timetablist's Air Afrique Week Wednesday post. The first is a terrific 1962 envelope, celebrating the launch of the new carrier, with a brief-case bearing Ivoirian businessman, his back to the rising skyline of booming Abidjan, faces a herder at right, a lamb nestled in his hand. Between them is the African continent, zooming with 707-like jets of the era. The stamp is a duplicate image.

The second example from four years hence mimics the first. Celebrating the first flight of the sleek DC-8, which soars across the envelop from the left, towards the double cancellation marks, finished with a stylish deep-green stamp honoring the same event, with silver-grey jets streaming in front of the silver grey skyscrapers of Abidjan's modern skyline.

Air Afrique: Douala-Geneva, November 1969

Tuesday of Timetablist's Air Afrique week: An attractive first flight cover of Air Afrique from Douala to Geneva on 6 November 1969. The sharp but simple graphics of the envelope, with its clever textual boundary dividing the surface in two, is enhanced by the carefully placed special-cancellation mark, and the colorful stamps at right.

Cameroon would be setting up its own flag-carrier, Cameroon Airlines, and therefore withdrawing from the Air Afrique group, barely a year after the issuance of this envelope and the launch of this service. Cameroon's inaugural flights, on 1 November 1971, were almost two years to the day from this celebratory issue (although Cameroon's B747 service to Europe only came later in the 1970s).

Air Afrique: B707 Stamp of the Republic of Benin, c.1975

For Monday of Air Afrique week, here is a classically exotic image from both the golden age of jet travel and Africa's independence era: A broad-winged B707 in on a palm-fringed airfield, as the ground crew awaits deplaning passengers from Marseille, Paris or Geneva.

The pride of the young Benin, which was originally colonial Dahomey. The blacked out labelling on the stamp from Republique du Dahomey to Benin suggests the vintage of this issue to be 1975 or just thereafter.

Also, other than the occasional freighter version, Air Afrique did not employ the B707, utilizing instead the DC-8. Given that this is a non-Afrique aircraft which is not painted in Afrique colors, perhaps this drawing was originally an Air France B707. It can only be guessed that this is a gateway Benin airfield of Cotonou or Porto-Novo.

Air Afrique: West and Central Africa Timetable, mid-1973

After last week's posts on the post-independence carriers of the Republic of Gabon, Timetablist stays in the Gulf of Guinea region, clearing out the back catalogue with a week dedicated to Air Afrique.

The first item is a French language timetable from the early prime of the regional consortium, effective from March to October 1973, showing its weekly intra-African flights (translated into English, rather interestingly, as 'domestic' services). Air Afrique's renown gazelle & globe emblem is shown at top.

Services include certain routes of Royal Air Maroc (code AT) and Air Mauritanie (code MR), although it is noted at the bottom of the table that there is "no traffic rights" --perhaps, Air Afrique is unable to sell seats on the other carrier's routes included, but its not clear why these routes are then offered in the matrix. There are lots of cities excluded as well, key Air Afrique hubs, not least Abidjan but also Cotonou and Lomé.

Gabon Airlines: Worldwide Network*, c.2010

After the previous post's historic example from the glory days of Air Gabon, in which that country's current flag carrier was briefly mentioned, it'd be appropriate to provide some more detail on that rather less celebratory successor, Gabon Airlines.

The erstwhile Air Gabon's angular, sharp-eyed, forest-green character has been replaced with a banal abstract assemblage, which is difficult to discern on the tiny B767 above, which spurts a toxic green contrail across the center of the continent as it roars off toward East Asia, away from any of the carrier's true destinations (which are equally difficult to discern, as discussed below). Gabon Airlines' flagship A340 sports no scheme whatsoever.

In comparison to the last post's Air Gabon network from three decades previous, its interesting to note that Metropolitan destinations (Nice, Marseille) and Rome are not shown above, with the most notable additions being Beirut and Dubai. In its home region, a thick array of Gulf of Guinea destinations lacks only Yaoundé and Kinshasa. Most curiously absent from the map is Gabon's second city, Port Gentil.

But this does not mean the airline does not serve it: Wikipedia's article on Gabon Airlines refers back to the carrier's website, which shows a recent schedule listing only Paris CDG, Marseille, Pointe-Noire, Libreville, and Port-Gentil. Its not clear whether these are recent adjustments to a larger systemwide network, or represent the entire extent of the carrier's services. Another section of the website theoretically allows for online purchases of tickets to destinations including Douala, Malabo, and São Tomé, as well as domestics services to Franceville and Moanda. But then this has only a scant relationship to the route map above, with its dozen other cities.

The unpainted A340 occasionally appearing at CDG Aerogare-1 truly represents Gabon Airlines: something of a mystery.

Air Gabon: Worldwide Network, 1992

Two lovely vintage graphics from the now sadly defunct Air Gabon, with its delightful, cartoonish icon. Underneath is a wealth of detail of the 3x weekly from Paris CDG Terminal 1 aboard a B747 Combi, with 18 First Class and 46 Business Class and 188 Economy Class seats to Libreville, with onward connections to Pointe-Noire, Luanda and Port-Gentil. Despite the lively colors and the lubricant of the lavish petrol-paradises of its regional network, and its stately ticket office on Rue Roosevelt off the Champs Elysées, Air Gabon has failed. Paris-Libreville, aside from service by Air France, is now served by Gabon Airlines with a rather blandly undecorated leased A340, which still departs terminal 1 and still has three classes of service. Travelers at Nice and Marseille must somehow make their way to Gabon without convenience of direct service.

Air Madagascar: International Routes, c.2007

Continuing with Air Madagascar from the last post, this route map, from the semi-orphaned English-language North American Air Mad website, shows the carrier's international routes from a few years ago, when Milan was served and Marseille (a current destination) was not. The site's timeline helpfully confirms that Air Mad formerly served Zurich, Frankfurt, Rome, and Munich. Although not part of this image, Air Mad's already-fanciful livery was updated as new aircraft were acquired in recent years to emphasize the gorgeous, warm maroon color, but retained the famous "travelers' palm."

Air Madagascar: Zürich-Antananarivo, 1986

A gorgeously designed and stamped first day cover celebrating the first flight of Air Madagascar from Zürich to Antananarivo, 1 November 1986 with Air Mad's B747B . Sadly, Air Mad no longer serves Kloten Airport, and once served Frankfurt and Milan as well, but does still offer Paris and Marsielle. However, today its largest aircraft is the B767-300.

Air Namibia: Systemwide Network, 2010

Air Namibia has successfully served its prosperous but sparsely-populated republic since independence in 1990. Intercontinental routes have concentrated on London and Frankfurt (largely due to Namibia's unique population of German-speakers). Air Berlin currently serves Windhoek, and the London-Gatwick route has been difficult to sustain, and was suspended in May 2009. Air Namibia has had better luck since 2009 with direct service from Johannesburg to Accra, using its two A340.

Air Astana: International Routes, 2011

From the interactive route map at Air Astana's website. The national airline of Kazakhstan is named after the country's new capital, although confusingly the airline's central hub continues to be the older, larger, erstwhile capital, Almaty. Air Astana uses a combination of Airbus A320, B757 and B767 aircraft to link Almaty to London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, China, Russia, Delhi, Abu Dhabi and several regional and domestic destinations. The city of Astana itself is, according to Wikipedia, linked to Istanbul, Frankfurt, Moscow, Urumqi, Novosibirsk, Abu Dhabi, and Yekaterinburg, and seasonally to Hanover, although this is not shown on the airline's website.

Etihad Airways: African, European & North American Routes, 2011

Etihad is far behind its rival Emirates, especially in terms of African routes. It had fewer North American destinations (and has no A380s) although it has successfully served Chicago O'Hare non-stop with an A340-500 for more than a year. The airline also links Abu Dhabi with smaller cities like Geneva, Minsk, Kiev, Brussels, and Dublin.

Egyptair: the African Routes, 2011

Egyptair has long had a strong presence in connecting the continent's largest city and its headquarters, Cairo, with the rest of Africa. This includes three cities in Nigeria, as well as the city of Juba, capital of South Sudan, which has just recently voted for independence.

Emirates: the African Routes, 2011

Fast-growing Emirates has 18 destinations on the African continent as of 2011.

Iceland Express: New Routes, 2011

A small, back-of-the-ticket-jacket route map showing fast-growing low-cost Iceland Express's bold expansion plans for the coming year across North America, including especially the rather unusual choice of Winnipeg. Clearly marketing this new service to British customers. Note that Reykjavík is shown as the connection point, when it is technically the international airport at Keflavík where the change of planes takes place.

Air Congo Poster

A promotional poster for Air Congo's intercontinental jet services.

Air Congo: Jet Service a Republique du Rwanda

A vintage poster celebrating Air Congo (a Sabena-backed entity) whose four-engined jets soared southward from Europe to Rwanda.

KLM: Amsterdam-Chicago

The inaugural Chicago-to-Amsterdam flight of KLM, showing the outline of the B747 which is still used on the route today.

SAS: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c.1960

Scandinavian Airline System offered Boeing jet services from Bangkok, with Polar Routes from Tokyo to Europe and from Europe to Los Angeles; SAS's worldwide network was reached with 4-times weekly connections from Kuala Lumpur on Thai Airways DC-6B cooperative services, which also linked regional cities from Djakarta to Phnom Penh.

Cathay Pacific Airways: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

A much smaller carrier half a century ago, the green-stripped constellations of Cathay Pacific Airways spanned from India to Japan. It would be twenty years before the airline would acquire its first 747 and a quarter-century before the airline would cross the Pacific. Jesselton is now known as Kota Kinabalu.

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.

JAL: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

A listing of Japan Air Lines connections from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960, with office address and telephone number.

British Airways, Latin America & the Caribbean, 1999

Other than its small colonial outposts, which lie within the Caribbean basin between Belize, the Bahamas and Barbados, the United Kingdom has little historic connection to Middle and South America. However, British Airways flies to several Latin cities for petroleum and financial connections, as this bland, newspaper photo-copy quality destination map from 1999 shows.

Air New Zealand: Pacific System, c. 1972

Air New Zealand was decades away from boasting of a world-leading premium cabin as it is today, but can still pride itself in serving the South Pacific better than nearly any carrier, linking Los Angeles and Honolulu to Fiji and Auckland, and offering a non-stop Tahiti service from LAX, too. Today, Air New Zealand links Los Angeles to London Heathrow as well.

Fly Garuda's New Electra, c.1960

A youthful Garuda boasted that its new Electra craft could propel Singaporeans as far as Manila, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Malayan Airways c.1960

An attractive greyscale announcement of an adolescent Malayan Airways tiger lines, which at the time extended only as far as Hong Kong, direct with its jet-prop Bristol Britannia (and supercool frill typeface). Decades later Malaysia would crest as one the world's largest carriers, with services like KL-Dubai-Newark and KL-Johannesburg-Cape Town-Buenos Aires.

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).

ASKY Airlines network, October 2010

Fast-growing regional carrier ASKY Airlines is based (somewhat surprisingly) in Lomé, Togo. The subsidiary of also-burgeoning Ethiopian Airlines has already established itself as a major West African airline, with useful connections within and between both Anglophone and Francophone cities.

Air France/KLM: African Network, Winter 2010/11: Codeshare destinations

Selected destinations served by Sky-team partner Kenya Airways in code-share are shown in red. Nairobi has become a significant hub for the alliance.

Air France/KLM: African Network, Winter 2010/11: Gulf of Guinea detail

The Air France-KLM's network in the Gulf of Guinea, serving every capital and major city from Abidjan to Luanda, is impressively dense and frequent.

Air France/KLM: Winter 2010/11

Air France-KLM's website currently features this extremely thoughtful network map for Sub-tropical Africa, with each city labelled with weekly frequencies, designated by carrier and hub. The otherwise-lucid graphic is a bit confusing, in that it includes only Libya among North African states, and even more confusingly does not include Djibouti or Madagascar--yet Air France is one of the few carriers to serve Antananarivo and Djibouti.

Air India: Worldwide, December 2006

A colorful but confusing route map from Air India. Air India's global network is complicated enough, with its "scissors hubs", necessary due to the distance between North America and the sub-continent, routing passengers via London and Frankfurt. The use of red lines for the code-share services is somewhat obfuscating, making the network seem larger and more global than it is, as the eye naturally focuses on the brighter colors.

Comparing to the previous post, there is a general, though not extensive, expansion to East Asia. several cities in Europe are served; East Africa is part of the network. More cities in the United States are connected. What is most surprisingly is the total retreat from the Gulf region; only Dubai is served between the Mediterranean and the hub at Mumbau.

Air India, worldwide network, c.1960

Via either Comet or Boeing 707 to five continents, from the Statue of Liberty to the wildlife of East Africa, the beefeaters of Buckingham to the geishas of the Ginza. Note the dense intra-European network.

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.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky: The international non-stops, Winter/Spring 2005

Five Years ago, Cincinnati was connected with four European capitals daily: London (Gatwick), Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, all by Delta Air Lines, which once operated one its largest hubs from the banks of the Ohio River.  Pre-SkyTeam Partner airline Air France often landed from CDG itself. In addition, Delta landed in Northern Kentucky from Cancun, Nassau, Montreal, and Toronto.

Today, only the Paris connection remains, although Cincinnati continues to be painfully squeezed between Delta's massive hubs in Atlanta and Detroit, as well as Memphis, also under pressure to shrink, and Minneapolis (the latter three inherited from Northwest). Meanwhile, Delta launched seasonal service from Pittsburgh to Paris, which continues to operate in the summer season, usually with a B757.

BOAC: Worldwide Routes, 1962

Showing some unusual destinations, such as Brazzaville, Kano, Dakar and Windhoek that are no longer served by successor British Airways.

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.

Swissair: Zurich-Kinshasa, 1973

Swissair always had extensive routes across Africa. This envelope, although certainly commemorative, does not indicate whether this date was particularly important for the route to Zaïre, which is helpfully outlined on the map.

Swissair/Air Afrique: Geneva-Monrovia, 1977

This is a somewhat confusing envelope. Is Air Afrique or Swissair metal doing the work? This is 1977, 12 years after yesterday's inaugural flight. The printing is at least specific when it comes to the aircraft: a DC-10-30 (which was in both airlines' fleets) is announced at top and glides across the page.

Swissair: Zurich-Monrovia, 1965

There are absolutely no giraffes in Liberia, nor were there in 1965, but that did not deter the Swiss from celebrating the first flight to Monrovia with a Serengeti scene. No information on routing or aircraft. The purple architectural stamp at center may depict the post office in Monrovia, which still stands.