Emirates: from Birmingham to Dubai, to the World.

Surely the pride of Birmingham aviation, even more so than Turkish Airlines, is Emirates, dutifully touching down every day with a respectable B777, non-stop from Dubai. Equally reliable is its blanketing of advertisements, such as this eye-level glossy, one of a series that adorns each column of the terminal forecourt. A family of indistinguishable origin glides joyfully in front of the Atlantis Hotel on the Palm. All that Birmingham could possible hope for is to have the route permanently upgraded to a superjumbo.

Turkish Airlines: From Birmingham Ten Times A Week, May 2013

Continuing from yesterday's post: the Hermes Road circus, a confusing roundabout connecting the forecourt of the Birmingham airport with a weave of motorways, features several billboard advertisements customized for the Brummie air transport consumer.

This bright-red advert catches the eye before the turn-off for the terminals, boasting of Turkish Airlines 10x weekly non-stops to Istanbul, from whence the rapidly expanding carrier, following a Gulf super carrier model, links to hundreds of other destinations. Turkish provides one of the few services outside of Europe to Birmingham, one of the few non-European carriers touching down in the West Midlands. However the long wide body A330 gliding across the ad is not seen at BHX. Instead, Turkish uses a much smaller Boeing 737.

BMI Regional: Brand-new destinations from Birmingham, May 2013

A lazy snap of a billboard at an airport roundabout; that peculiar zone of travelers and their company, heading to and from the aerodrome. Surely the intended audience already has their passage arranged? Maybe next time.

In this case, Birmingham International, whose glory days of flag carriers and intercontinental widebodies are distant, but which still hosts a variety of carriers to points across Europe, and a few beyond.

Here, BMI Regional, that remnant rump of the erstwhile international carrier, British Midland, is actually expanding, even as its long-range flagships have been absorbed into the fleet of British Airways, which no longer flies to Birmingham at all. Britain's great industrial metropolis is now linked to a rather random foursome of short-haul hops to Scandinavia and France: Billund, Denmark, Gothenburg, Sweden, and Lyon and Toulouse in southern France. Brazilian regional jets do the journeys.

Finnair to Asia, March 2013

Few carriers in the world have turned their geographic lemons into lemonade as Finnair, whose dominant strategy in the last 10-15 years has been to look beyond its own tiny home market to become a dominant carrier between Europe and the distant destinations of Asia. This began in the late 1990s with succesful runs to major mixed business/leisure hubs from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Bangkok and Singapore. Today, this includes a daring strategy to link second-tier mainland Chinese cities, such as Chongqing and Xi'an, with little Vantaa Airport in Helsinki, spanning Eurasia by linking European business centers with emerging megacapitals of the Far East, which later this year will include Ho Chi Minh City but was curiously unsuccessful in reaching Guangzhou.

The map above, an eye-catching global map from a web banner ad, shows 13 long-haul non stops. Also helpfully, and perhaps a little hopefully, the map shows the link to New York, suggesting a JFK to Japan journey via Scandinavia.

Addis Ababa Bole Airport Departures 23 April 2013, #2

The second screen of Addis Ababa's Bole Airport evening departures show many more options on Ethiopian Airlines near and far, from Muscat to Washington, Tel-Aviv to Stockholm, reflecting the breadth of the ancient country's modern connections both in terms of trade and diaspora communities.

Addis Ababa Bole Airport Departures, 23 April 2013 #1

The mid-night bank of flights from Addis Ababa's Bole Airport shows the busy base of East Africa's biggest carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, working through the late hours. The terminal screens flip from Latin script to electronic Amharic, showing long-haul departures to London, Guangzhou, and Beijing, as well as medium-haul flights to Saudi Arabia and nearby Nairobi (home of arch-rival Kenya Airways). Two flights offer one-stop services: the first to Milan via Rome, the second a new extension of the Bangkok service to Kuala Lumpur.

Only TK677 on sister Star Alliance carrier Turkish Airlines to Istanbul is not on Ethiopian metal, although the screen's airline logos flip through the fellow alliance members, from Lufthansa to SAS to Air China.

Departures from Abidjan Port-Bouet Airport, 23 April 2013

The daily block of departures from Abidjan's Felix Houphouët-Boigny/Port Bouet International Airport on 23 April 2013 reveals a slate of recent developments in tropical African aviation. Especially new local entrant Air Côte D'Ivoire, recently risen from the ashes of the older Air Ivoire, providing three flights across the francophone region. Its first flight were in December 2012 and this post marks its first appearance on Timetablist.

Another is the young Senegal Airlines, similarly a quick replacement for defunct Air Senegal International, which in this case is heading eastward to other French-speaking centers in Togo and Cameroon. Lastly, Mauritania Airlines International, set up in 2010 to replace defunct Mauritania Airways (which was itself a second-try at the failed Air Mauritanie), is heading back to its capital, Nouakchott, via Bamako, Mali.

Regional growth carrier ASKY has two flights: to its hub at Lomé and to Conakry, while Air Burkina, one of the few West African airlines that has lasted more than a few years, links Burkina Faso's secondary city, Bobo Dioulasso.

Non-regional airlines make an appearance, providing the only links with non-French-speaking cities: Emirates offers the only wide-body on the day's schedule, its quad-engined A340s hopping next door to Accra before heading home to Dubai; Ethiopian Airlines ET916 is a next-gen B737 that stops in Cotonou before returning to its base at Addis Ababa's Bole Airport after a long journey from one side of the continent to the other.

Austrian Airlines: Vienna to Chicago, May 2013

One last in this week's series of new international carriers coming to Chicago, particularly those that are a resumption of previous intercontinental flights: The rather strange homepage graphic is from the website of Austrian Airlines, which this month is due to return to Chicago. The move has long been prudent, to feed into the massive mid-continental links of Star Alliance partner United Air Lines.

But the image above rather clumsily suggests connections not via the Midwest but Mittel-Europa; it has always been Austrian Airlines dream to have Vienna serve as a switch-station to points further east, such as here faraway Delhi or nearby Moscow or Kiev. There probably won't be too many US passengers for Minsk, and why anyone would connect from North America to London or Barcelona via Vienna is curious; better off trying the new-nonstop on PIA for Catalonia, for instance.

Pakistan International Airlines: Chicago-Barcelona-Karachi, June 2013

A final post a news out of Chicago, especially concerning new service to O'Hare featuring the exotic liveries of southwest Asian airlines and unusual fifth-freedom routes. The very nice site boardingarea.com has a feature on Pakistan International Airlines new Chicago-Barcelona service. Flight PK794 then continues on to both Islamabad and Karachi, although Boardingarea.com's post focuses on the extremely reasonable business-class fares to Spain.

The route is actually a resumption of long-standing service from Pakistan to the prairie which was temporarily cut in 2012. The older route included a Lahore stop, which is not in PIA's present plans for 2013.

A special thanks to boardingarea.com for the original reporting and use of the above images. 

Kuwait Airways to Chicago, 1997-2005

Following yesterday's post seems an opportune moment to look at the relationship between a fourth Gulf airline and Chicago O'Hare: Kuwait Airways, which once offered twice-weekly A340 flights from the tiny Emirate to the Windy City, initially via Amsterdam then later offering the only non-stop service from Illinois to Lake Geneva (the original body in Switzerland), with 5th-freedom rights to carry passengers between Europe and the Midwest.  The service ended in November 2005, just as the mighty Emirates and other Mid-east mega-carriers began a massive expansion, with Kuwait Airways and Gulf Air being just two legacy carriers to retreat.

Qatar Airways to Chicago, April 2013

Qatar Airways, continuing its rapid, worldwide expansion by adding a fourth destination in the United States last month: Chicago O'Hare. The ultra-long range B777-300ER will ply the 13-hour route just three time per week until June, when the service will become daily, in time for the scorching season in both places. The move comes well-ahead, but presumably related to, Qatar's admission to the OneWorld alliance, which will involve greater coordination with American Airlines, which of course has a huge hub at ORD.

Qatar joins Etihad Airways as the second of the three fast-growing Gulf super-carrier to land at O'Hare. Now also a daily service, Etihad's extended range A340-500s have been descending over Lake Michigan since September 2009. Interestingly, this leaves Emirates, the mack-daddy of Middle Eastern mega-airlines, as the only one of the three rivals to not service the midwestern metropolis, despite serving smaller, secondary US hubs such as Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle for several years.

Saudia: Seasonal Service to Orlando, 1994

Reprint of: "Saudi Airline Plans Seasonal Flights To Orlando International"
published on June 21, 1994, written by Jerry Jackson for the Orlando Sentinel:


Saudia Airlines, the flagship airline of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will begin flying into Orlando via New York on July 4, Orlando International Airport officials said Monday.

Flights using Boeing 747-300 aircraft will operate twice a week from Jeddah and Riyadh, to Orlando International Airport with a brief stop at New York's Kennedy International Airport.

Saudia's flights initially are scheduled to operate through September, primarily for the summer tourism season in Florida. But airport officials said they hope the route will be successful and that service will be extended.

''Saudia is the flagship carrier for Saudia Arabia and the only airline offering nonstop service from the U.S. to the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia,'' said Keith Phildius, senior vice president for international development and marketing for Orlando International.

It is the second airline from the Mideast to announce seasonal service to Orlando in the past six months. In January, El Al Israel Airline launched twice weekly service to Orlando International through Feb. 20 and the end of the pilgrimage season to the Holy Land.

Also this year, Aeroflot Russian International Airlines began regularly scheduled service between Moscow and Orlando on a test basis.

''I think it says a lot that within a two or three-month period of time, two of the world's renowned airlines - Aeroflot and Saudia - are coming to Orlando. It's good news,'' Phildius said.

More than a dozen airlines provide regularly scheduled international service to 20 destinations from Orlando. Another 40 charter airlines fly frequently between scores of other foreign cities and Orlando.

Airport officials said the decision by Saudia Airlines to fly to Orlando, shuttling tourists and business travelers to Central Florida, helps Orlando stretch its vision as an international center.

''This goes beyond our traditional markets of Latin America and Europe,'' said Carolyn Fennell, a spokeswoman for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.

A representative of Saudia Airlines could not be reached Monday, and Orlando airport officials had no further details about the service.

TWA: London to St. Louis Daily

Long-gone are the days when Trans World Airlines even existed, or that there was a sizeable airline hub at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, or that there was intercontinental service from the airport. But in the golden years of the 1980s and 1990s, St Louis acted as a mid-American cross-roads, linking the plains states with the coasts, in addition to a highly-prestigious cluster of cross-pond services to London and Paris. The London services peaked at a double-daily operation in the summer of 1997.

The simple symbolism of the above advertisement is clever, graphically rearranging the elements of the famous London underground logo to look both like the Gateway Arch and link the arc of an airplane flight, taking off and landing on two different continents.

Regretfully, any international service at St. Louis today stretches only as far as Toronto or Cancún. American Airlines picked over the remnants of bankrupt TWA in 2001, ending trans-atlantic services soon after the takeover, and shutting down the hub operations in St. Louis over the next decade.

KLM: Accra-Amsterdam, July 2012

A disappointing detail on what is otherwise a delightful flight: KLM 590, the nightly non-stop from Accra to Amsterdam, is onboard a brand-new A330-300, but offers the bland, geography-free in-flight map, above. Part of the joy of a trans-Saharan flight is looking out the window at the wastelands and marveling at the corners of Mali, Mauritania and Algeria that the plane is transversing. Not possible here.

Gambia Bird Network, October 2012

We interrupt this blog to bring you West Africa's newest airline: The delightfully sleek Gambia Bird, which, if its own press releases are to be believed, commenced operations today.

Backed by low-cost German carrier Germania Airways, Gambia Bird features A319 services from Banjul, from the 50-minute hop to Dakar to the long haul legs to London Gatwick and Barcelona. Lagos does not seem to be on the schedule quite yet, nor the non-stops between Freetown and London or Monrovia and Accra. But its current timetable does break with the norm and offer more direct non-stops, rather than interline services (the Banjul-Monrovia run does not stop in Freetown or Conakry, for instance).

There's nothing that Timetablist loves more than a new West African airline, and Gambia has been without its own flag-carrier since the disreputable demise of Slok Air in 2008, and stretching back to the proud days of Air Gambia and Gambia Airways.

Singapore Airlines: The A380 to Frankfurt, January 2012

Singapore Airlines announces its tricontinental luxury A380 service between Frankfurt and Singapore which launched on 16 January of this year. SIA was the launch operator of the superjumbo, and is currently one of ten airlines flying the A380.

China Eastern Airlines: Shanghai-Frankfurt-Hamburg, 2012

A blue-hued depiction of the route of China Eastern Airlines between Shanghai Pudong and Hamburg via Frankfurt, as shown on the China Eastern website, which, like most of the carriers of the People's Republic, is mostly in Chinese, even for a member of SkyTeam. Not many foreign carriers serve Hamburg, despite its size and wealth, but linking the two massive ocean ports via air must be imperative enough to warrant the once-weekly extension of MU219/220 to Hamburg, which started in August of 2011. Its not clear why the interface lists the random selection of destinations in Asia, Australia and Canada as it does at right.

Royal Brunei Airlines Network, 2011

Since it first started flight to London in 1990, Royal Brunei Airlines has offered something of an alternative to the traditional Kangaroo Route choices, with its links to several Australian cities (but not, apparently, Sydney) via the tiny Sultanate's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, and Dubai to Heathrow Terminal 4. There are even links to five cities in the British Isles, courtesy of BMI, as shown in the cartouche at lower left. The airline serves ten regional cities as well, from Shanghai to Singapore to Surabaya. This item was found via the Daily Mail online, in some sort of promotion with department store John Lewis.

Qantas Routes, c.1955

A map for Qantas from about the same era as the previous post, showing the predominant Australian carrier with all its five-continent reach, from Victoria to Vancouver, Johannesburg to Japan. Similar to this post from last year, also showing the pre-jet era Qantas, yet in this map the airline had spanned the Pacific to San Francisco, a route which commenced in 1954, just five year before the arrival of its first B707s.

Australian National Airways Routes, c.1950

A DC-4 zooms across the dry expanse of the antipodean continent in this vintage route map of the long-gone Australian National Airways. The quad-motor Douglas aircraft only entered the fleet after World War II, and shortly before the airline's demise in a fiercely-competitive market. Although this pamphlet highlights the major national route, Sydney-Melbourne, in red, the airline stretches from Cairns in northern Queensland to Hobart in Tasmania and extends from Adelaide to Perth via the outback station of Kalgoorlie. The remnants of its operations were later folded into Ansett in the mid-1950s.