KLM: Nairobi to Amsterdam, April 30, 2013

The route of KLM Flight #KL566 from Nairobi to Amsterdam, a B747-400 which flew right through the notch of Sudan and Libya, as shown on the in-flight video screen, arriving the next morning in Europe. The graphics recall a similar trans-Saharan night flight from Accra from six months earlier.

Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta Airport International Departures, 30 April 2013, #2

The second screen of the international departures board for NBO on the night of 30 April shows activity through the night at this 24-hour airport; no restrictions on small-hour activity, perhaps because there is so little.

In the 35 minutes before midnight, Kenya Airways has two long-hauls: to Guangzhou via Bangkok, and London-Heathrow. There is a shorter flight to Bujumbura and Kigali.

SWISS leaves for Zürich, one of the last African services for the airline which formerly served a dozen sub-Saharan cities. After an almost two-and-a-half hour pause, Brussels Airlines leaves for Brussels via Kigali. Turkish Airlines takes a dead-zone departure time to fly to Istanbul, a curious time slot, and just before sunrise, Ethiopian operates the first of several daily flights to Addis Ababa.

By daylight, activity picks up. KQ leaves for Johannesburg, and follows in the next hour with departures to Dar Es Salaam, Juba, Yaounde, and a link to Lilongwe and Lusaka. Air Uganda's first flight to Entebbe leaves at the same time. African Express leaves for Berbera and Mogadishu at 7am.

Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta Airport International Departures, 30 April 2013, #1

The departure board at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 9PM in the 30th of April of this year, showing a squadron of flights across Africa, as well as long-hauls to Europe and Asia.

Of the 13 flights shown, 8 are within Africa, and 5 of those are on Kenya Airways: to Gaborone, Botswana, Johannesburg, and a flight to both Lusaka and Harare, all in Southern Africa. Kenya always flies to nearby Entebbe, one of three airlines offering flights to Uganda's main airport late in the evening, the other being African Express and Air Uganda. there is also a KQ service to Dar Es Salaam at 10:30, an hour after Precision Air's service to the Tanzanian capital.

Outside of Africa, Kenya Airways has evening flights to Mumbai and Dubai, the latter with onward service to Hong Kong, while Emirates has a non-stop to Dubai ten minutes later. This is followed by the 11:15 flight to London Heathrow on British Airways. The KLM flight to Amsterdam, leaving at 22:25, is the only other European flight.

British Airways: The African Routes, c.2008

British Airways, a conservative carrier steeped in tradition, rarely makes changes, particularly to its unique route map illustration, which looks quite similar to this version from the beginning of the decade. 

The only changes are the loss of direct BA services to Harare, and the absence of the Dakar-Freetown route. The former is still on the map, but only as part of the South African-centered Comair network.

Since this printing, Dar Es Salaam dropped from the schedule just this past March, and only last week BA announced the end of its historic service to Lusaka-- two legacy routes to former colonies that can no longer be commercially justified.

KLM: First Flight from Amsterdam to Lagos with the MD-11, January 1994

An attractive item from nearly 19 years ago, as KLM was just introducing the MD-11 to its fleet. KLM had served Nigeria for many years, initially with a stop in Kano as part of its earliest trans-African route to Johannesburg, and had served Lagos for several decades. The main event is the upgrading of the route to the shiny new tri-jet, which is both sharply illustrated on the envelope and accurately depicted on the cancellation stamp. Today, although KLM's MD-11 has still been seen in West Africa, an A330 generally does the job.

Nigeria Airways: Domestic Network, November 1981

The most obvious difference in juxtaposing the route map of Nigeria Airways in 1981 with Arik Air in 2012 is the centralization around hubs that has taken place in those decades. Here, the state carrier offered a diversity of linkages between major cities, with an array of flights connecting Kano, Jos, Enugu, Benin City and Kaduna. Even Yola and Markurdi have multiple options (although as with all route networks, the frequency of such flights is not clear).

Aside from the intricacy of this web,  the complete absence of Abuja is obvious. Today, this myriad span of domestic flights has been rationalized around a two-hub system split between Lagos and Abuja. Although airlines worldwide have consolidated into hub-and-spoke systems, it is tempting to see this transition as an allegory for the fate of the federal state and Nigerian society in these ensuing years.

As noted previously, Kano's status as a northern hub and intercontinental gateway has been erased. Note that the Ibadan-Benin City-Calabar service was suspended at the time.

See the previous post for Nigeria Airways's international network from 1981.

Nigeria Airways: International Network, November 1981

In looking from Arik Air's route map from October back to Virgin Nigeria's system from 2009, we can stretch back almost thirty-two years to this representation of the Nigeria Airways network of November 1981, as seen in the old trade publication, Flight International.

There are many similarities, particularly the nearly-identical route line hugging the West African coast to Dakar with a mini-hub at Monrovia. Intercontinentally, there are familiar routes to London and New York.

What is more remarkable, however are the many differences: Long-haul flights to Amsterdam, Rome, and Jeddah, all remarkably emanating out of Kano, with an apparent non-stop to London from Port Harcourt. There is also a trans-African route from Lagos to Calabar to Douala, crossing the heart of the continent to Nairobi, and a link to Libreville from Calabar and Port Harcourt as well. Lastly, a northern flight to Niamey originates in Kano and stops in the sultanate of Sokoto before crossing the border.

Many of these routes no longer exist. Part of this is the decline of Kano as an intercontinental airport, a topic recurring in Timetablist back to its most ancient archives, but is most startling in this earlier Nigeria Airways route map of 1973, when the majority of Nigeria Airway's European routes departed from Kano.  Like many deregulated systems, Nigeria's air services have consolidated, dropping secondary destinations and service from non-hub cities.

The next post will detail the domestic network. 

Arik Air: Domestic flights, October 2012

Following on from the previous post, the small corner detail of Arik Air's two-page route map spread shows the domestic operations of the de-facto flag carrier. Here, the airline's signature red and blue colors are used to differentiate operations out of Lagos Murtala Muhammed from flights fanning out of Abuja's Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, which actually has connections to more cities than the much larger commercial capital, acting as a hub in the middle of the country.

Arik Air: International Network, October 2012

The Route Map of Arik Air, now Nigeria's premier airline and flag carrier across the world (despite a red-and-blue color scheme, without a hint of green).

Here, the world of Arik spreads across two pages of Arik's inflight magazine from last October, two three continents.

Compare to an earlier era of three years ago, and Arik's erstwhile rival, Virgin Nigeria, boasted a similar map. Yet Arik actually flies to New York's JFK airport, a destination Virgin Nigeria was never able to reach. In fact, Arik flies daily to three of the four prestige overseas destinations: New York, London-Heathrow (from both Lagos and Abuja), and Johannesburg (Dubai being the fourth, yet to be added). Luanda is also linked.

Arik has a denser West African network, naturally, as is one of the key carriers of the region. Besides the popular Lagos-Accra-Monrovia run and another to Freetown and Banjul, the airline has a francophone route from Cotonou to Ouagadougou to Bamako to Dakar. 

The inset shows the domestic network, detailed in the following post.

Ghana International Airlines: Accra, London, Düsseldorf, c.2009

After the demise of Ghana Airways, furtive attempts were made to keep a Black Star flag carrier in the skies. From 2005-2010, Ghana International Airlines was an attempt to fill that role, with a single B757 flying weekly between Accra and London Gatwick, with a stop in Düsseldorf, Germany, which has a particularly sizable population of Ghanaians. Apparently there was also a service to Johannesburg, at least according to Wikipedia. This advert was from c.2009, the airline's last full year of operations.

ASKY Airlines: 2 flights per week Lomé-Bissau, September 2013

Starting mid-September, fast-growing regional airline ASKY will begin serving tiny Bissau from its increasingly-busy hub in Lomé, Togo. While the airline's own website gives no details or schedules, and isn't not even equipped to sell tickets on the routes, the helpful website Routes online reports that the twice-weekly service will be a biweekly extension of the existing Lome-Accra-Monrovia Spriggs Payne route. 

Air Volta: International and Interior Timetable

Fada N'Gourma, Gorom Gorom, Diapaga, Bogandé, Pama, Sebba, Dori. Not the sort of names that autofill on Kayak.com everyday. But this was the network of the dancing Chi-Wara, shown in this vintage Air Volta horaire. The more unfamiliar names occur on the Lignes Interieures at right, where the center of the card shows the schedule of the mainline Ouagadougou-Bobo Dioulasso-Bouake- Bamako-Lomé-Cotonou service.

Haute Volta is today Burkina Faso, of course, and Air Volta today has been succeeded by Grupo Celestair's Air Burkina.

Virgin Atlantic: African operations, June 2013

A visual from Virgin Atlantic's mobile app, showing the airline's African destinations as of this summer: Accra, Lagos, Cape Town, and Johannesburg, with the interactive showing single jet launching north from Murtala Mohammed to London Heathrow.

Virgin Atlantic's other destinations on the continent, Nairobi, Port Harcourt and Abuja have not lasted, although the airline's website still offers a destination guides to the latter two. Nor, somewhat surprisingly, has Accra, which, perhaps due to high fuel costs of operating a quad-engined A340 on the route, will end on 23 September of this year. Mauritius also did not last, although it and Nairobi are still bizarrely listed on its website. And, it should be noted, Cape Town is only seasonal.

Billboard in Accra showing the Air Mali Network, 2011

Air Mali has, in recent years, made a strong effort to be relevant in the fast-growing but still tiny West African aviation market. Prominent billboards, such as this one on the Kanda Highway near Kotoka Airport in Accra, were part of its strategy to get noticed and get customers.

The network stretches from Pointe-Noire to Nouakchott, and concentrates heavily on the Francophone capitals. However, there are a few Anglophone cities served, as especially highlighted on this advert with Accra shown more prominently than even Bamako. Lagos is also linked, although central African serves to Libreville and Brazzaville appear to transit via Cotonou or Lomé. The Freetown-Monrovia service was short-lived, and since this billboard was erected in Ghana, the country has been torn apart by civil conflict, from which it is just now starting to recover. It's not clear from the airline's website how accurate this c.2011 route map is today.

Air Nigeria Destinations, October 2012

With the renewed uncertainty around Antrak Air's airworthiness in the wake of a recent engine fire, yesterday's post recalls an earlier West African airline collapse, the sad demise of Air Nigeria, the once-proud Branson-backed venture which suspended operations in September 2012 after a number of rebrandings and a steady decline. Despite its diminished state, Air Nigeria's denouement had a major impact on West African air travelers. Nearly a month after its death, the door of Air Nigeria's ticket office in the international departure hall of Accra's Kotoka Airport sports its various destination in West Africa.

Antrak Air: No One Flies Ghana Like We Do, 2012

The optimism emanating from this A4 advertisement posted to the door of Antrak Air's ticket office in the domestic wing of Kotoka International Airport is somewhat dented by the sarcastic "R.I.P." scribbled in blue Bic at the bottom.

Thankfully for the aviation company, the fleet's grounding in the wake of an onboard fire in the spring of 2012 was temporary, and the airline is offering domestic flights between Accra and Kumasi, Sunyani, and Takoradi multiple times daily, although now it faces stiff competition from the grandiloquently named African World Airlines, and in the last week a second aircraft fire renewed calls in the Ghanaian press for the airline's immediate grounding.

Royal Jordanian: Amman to Lagos and Accra, July 2013

One of the newest entries into the fast-growing West African aviation market is Royal Jordanian, which  last month commenced a twice-weekly Amman-Lagos-Accra service on Wednesdays and Fridays. These colorfully-designed announcements appeared on the airline's website at the beginning of the summer.

While not as rapidly-expanding as the trio of Gulf supercarriers Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, little Royal Jordanian has reached Ghana before either of the latter two, using its dashing, charcoal-grey A330, according to Airline Route, which also notes a lack of local traffic rights between the two West African cities. Emirates flies to both Lagos and Accra daily, with the Accra service, usually on a massive A340, skipping on to Abidjan before returning to Dubai.

Corsair: Three times per week between Paris and Abidjan, April 2013

A billboard inside the arrivals hall at Abidjan's Felix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport advertises the fine features of Corsair's premium cabin on its thrice-weekly flights between Cote D'Ivoire and Paris-Orly Airport, which seem to usually operate on an A330. The advertisement boasts Corsair's most recent branding, which curiously replaced the TUI-conformed identity (not to mention its more interesting, earlier colors, based on the Corsican flag). A rather bland, sail-boat inspired tail design, which is also found on its website.

Surinam Airways Network, 2012

A colorful constellation of countries and constituencies shows the recent extent of Surinam Airways's routes. For certain the geography is not to scale, as tiny Curaçao is more massive than giant Brazil, and the compact Netherlands is as large as Florida. Belem is shown nearly as far away as the distant Dutch home country. A similar version shown on Flickr shows neighboring Georgetown, Guyana.

ALM Antillean Airlines Network, Date Unknown.

Via this Dutch Caribbean website comes this vintage route map of ALM Antillean Airlines. The image is undated but does not seem to be contemporary with the end of the little airline's life in 2001, so could be from anywhere between 1985-1995, although the airline had its origins in 1964. 

The "Dutch Anitllean Airlines" logo sits over the mid-Atlantic ocean, the same light blue as the nautical  labels and coordinate lines. The airline's routes spoke outward from the ABC islands, with three separate services to New York, one via St Maarten, and two to Miami via Kingston, Jamaica. Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and San Juan are also served. 

These tiny Dutch constituencies hug the massive South American coast, and likewise ALM's routes seem to skirt around the territory, particularly the southeasterly service which terminates at the Dutch-speaking Paramaraibo, Suriname, via Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Georgetown, Guyana. Other, shorter routes pierce the mainland, linking major Colombian and Venezuelan cities with the airline's home airports, Queen Beatrix International in Aruba and Hato International Airport at Willemstad, Curaçao.