South African Airways: the Australasian routes, 2013

The East Asian and Australian section of South African Airways' route map, from its inflight magazine in mid-2013, shows as many services of other carriers in the Star Alliance as it does of its own operations, which consist only of flights from Johannesburg to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Perth. Flights to Singapore on Singapore Airlines and Bangkok on Thai Airways from Joberg are shown. A fan of flights from Hong Kong to Seoul on Asiana and several Japanese cities on All Nippon fill up northeastern Asia. The Qantas flight to Sydney is shown, which weaves into a network of Air New Zealand flights to Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

South African Airways: the Transatlantic routes, 2013

South African Airways maintains four trans-Atlantic routes from Johannesburg to the Americas: two that remain in the Southern Hemisphere: to Buenos Aires and São Paulo, and two that cross the equator to the Northern Hemisphere: non-stop to New York, and to Washington-Dulles via Dakar. 

South African Airways: Long-Haul to Six Continents, 2013

Continuing from the previous post: the long-haul flights of South African Airways, exclusively on A340 and A330 aircraft, and exclusively out of Johannesburg, to all six inhabited continents: New York via Dakar, Washington, in North America; São Paulo and Buenos Aires in South America; London, Frankfurt, and Munich in Europe; Perth in Australia; and Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Beijing in Asia. It is one of the few airlines to serve all six continents, although that may not last as SAA's financial situation continues to deteriorate and long-standing intercontinental partnerships are scrapped.

South African Airways: African International Network, 2013

As detailed in the previous post, the inflight magazine for South African Airways lists the airline's network across Africa, showing flights to Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, Mauritius, Blantyre, Lilongwe, Entebbe, Maputo, Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Bujumbura, Kigali, and Libreville, exclusively with narrow-body A319 and B737-800 aircraft, except for the route to nearby Mauritius which uses the quad-engined wide body A340. Long-haul routes to four other continents, shown on the bottom half of the page, are detailed in the following post.

South African Airways: African International Timetable: 2013

From the mid-2013 in-flight magazine of South African Airways, which offers “Timetable Highlights,” here showing the schedule to international destinations in Africa as well as verbally describing the network to other continents. This page shows flights to Harare, Victoria Falls, Kinshasa, Accra, Abidjan, Luanda, Lagos, Windhoek, Pointe-Noire, and Cotonou. 

The following page is shown on the next post, which details the rest of the African network. 

Air Namibia Network, c.2000

From a brochure of Air Namibia from around the year 2000, showing the domestic, regional, and intercontinental network. From Windhoek, the airline's smaller craft fly to Walvis Bay, Lüderitz, Oranjemund, Ondongwa and Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip. Namibia's neighbors are each connected by service to a single city: Maun in Northern Botswana (but not the capital, Gaborone), Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe (but not Harare) and Luanda in Angola. Air Namibia flew to both Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Long-haul routes, highlighted in bright Namibian blue, link London and Frankfurt on-board the pride-of-fleet Airbus A340 aircraft; both it and its international crew and European technical maintenance are featured prominently in the leaflet.

Zambezi Airlines: Joburg and Back on the Same Day, December 2010

After the liquidation of flag carrier Zambia Airways in 1995, the Republic of Zambia has had several unsuccessful successors. Zambezi Airlines lasted from 2008 until 2011, during which time never extended beyond the regional cone, but did offer this reasonable rate to Johannesburg, presumably from Lusaka, although the taxes are excluded. Still, not bad for a quick holiday shopping trip.

Zambia Airways: Quick Reference Timetable, Winter 1995

 Staying the Eastern and Southern portion of Africa, here is an historic document from nearly twenty years ago, a quick reference timetable for Zambia Airways which expired on 25 March 1995. The cover provides an index to five pages of flight services, divided from and to Lusaka, the little airline's all-important hub. At the top, an international route network shows flights to five southern African capitals: Lilongwe, Gaborone, Johannesburg, Manzini and Harare, as well as a more distant service to Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam. Two longer flag-ship routes, to Bombay and London, were undoubtedly the pride of the company. Other regional and domestic routes to Lubumbashi, Ndola, Chipata, Mansa, Kasama and Mfuwe are listed inside the timetable but not shown on the map.

Kenya Airways: The Eastern and Southern Africa Routes, 2011.

A detail of the previous post showing the Kenya Airways network stretching across eastern and Southern Africa: non-stops to Gaborone and Johannesburg, and a inter-linked network of services to Lusaka, Lilongwe, Harare and Maputo, whereas Nampula in northern Mozambique is served non-stop. There are also direct flights to Lubumbashi and Ndola in the trans-national copperbelt, and flights stretching into the Indian Ocean to Antananarivo, Moroni and Victoria in the Seychelles. Zanzibar is connected to Mombasa, Bujumbura and Kigali are also linked. Flights northwards include Juba and in the Horn of Africa Addis Ababa and Djibouti.

Kenya Airways: the Africa Network, November 2011

From Kenya Airways in-flight magazine, recalling on older Timetablist posts showing earlier maps. KQ's West African network links the Nairobi hub with N'Djamena, onward to Cotonou, a non-stop to Lagos, connections to Freetown, Monrovia and Abidjan via Accra; a non-stop to Ouagadougou, and to Dakar via Bamako.

In Central Africa, Bangui, Yaounde, Douala and Malabo are variously interlinked and there are non-stops to Libreville, Luanda, Brazzaville and Kinshasa. Eastern and Southern African destinations will be discussed in the subsequent post.

Nairobi Departures April 30, 2013 #2

Rouding out the mid-evening schedule at Nairobi from the previous post are flights on a number of smaller, secondary air companies and low-cost carriers: African Express to Galkayo, Precision Air to Dar Es Salaam, Fly540 to Zanzibar and Juba, and Air Arabia to Sharjah. Qatar Airways to Doha and South African Airways to Johannesburg are mixed in as well.

Nairobi Departures, April 30, 2013 #1

 The departures from about 5:30pm on April 30, 2013 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya, showing a pair take-offs for the Gulf, with Emirates to Dubai and Qatar to Doha, followed by a bank of long-hauls to Europe, starting with British Airways to London Heathrow, Swiss to Zurich, Brussels Airlines to Zavantem in Brussels, followed by a South African flight to Johannesburg and a Turkish flight to Istanbul. Both Kenya Airways and SAA have later flights to Jo'berg as well, and there is a second departure to Doha later on. These wide body flights are interspersed with regional services by Kenya, Air Uganda, and others to regional capitals such as Juba, Dar Es Salaam, and Entebbe Airport outside of Kampala.

British Airways: the African Routes, 2013

Taken from British Airways' inflight magazine from mid-2013, showing its destinations in Africa from London-Heathrow, but also its regional flights on subsidiary Comair: Maputo, Port Elizabeth, Harare, Windhoek, Victoria Falls, Livingston, and Durban are not served by BA metal, and not long after this map went to print, Lusaka lost its long-standing flag-carrier service to Britain.

Emirates: Five A380 Superjumbos to London Heathrow Daily, mid-2013

Following on the last post, this screen-shot from the Emirates web-site details the super jumbo air bridge between London Heathrow and Dubai, now one of the largest-capacity routes out of London, second only to New York-JFK in passenger volume. 

Cathay Pacific: Five Flights a Day to London Heathrow, June 2013

As a measure of London's supremacy over the rest of the UK economy, we jump ahead a quarter-century from the last post to see the Cathay Pacific of today, adding a fifth daily non-stop to London Heathrow, while at the same time abandoning Britain's other economic centers such as Manchester and Birmingham. The services are almost entirely with the behemoth B777-300, Cathay having retired the B747-400 from the route in December, and due to phase out the jumbo from its fleet entirely in September of this year.

Cathay Pacific: System Timetable, Winter 1989-90

It's hard to make out all the various cities in Cathay Pacific's network in the immediate years following the return of Hong Kong to China, but it is interesting to note that a non-stop to Manchester was added to the network for this 1989-90 winter, a route which does not exist today. Port Moresby was added to the route to Auckland, and network stretched into the Indian Ocean with a flight to Mauritius.  A single trans-Pacific service links San Francisco, via Vancouver.