Evening departures from Bahrain International Airport

Gulf Air continues to dominate the evening flight board out of Bahrain, with flights to Jeddah, Dubai (both DXB and DWC), Kuwait, Riyadh and Muscat. In addition, nearly all the major flag carriers of the Middle East are present: Emirates to Dubai, Etihad to Abu Dhabi, Qatar to Doha, Kuwait Airways to Kuwait, Iran Air to Mashhad, and Saudia to Riyadh, and Royal Jordanian to Amman. Low-cost Air Arabia flies to Sharjah. at 6:40, as does Air India Express to Kochi—the only flight outside the Gulf. 

Afternoon departures from Bahrain International, January 2015

The typical weekend afternoon schedule out of Bahrain's only commercial airport is dominated by flights operated by the state carrier, Gulf Air, and flights to the Middle East. Bahrain's flag carrier departs for Karachi, Delhi, Muscat, Riyadh, Dubai (twice), Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Dammam. Mahan Air flies to Mashhad, Saudia to Jeddah, and Egyptair to Cairo. Emirati low-cost carriers flydubai and Rotana jet fly to their respective hubs as well.

The only flight on the top of the board that doesn't fall into either or both categories is Cathay Pacific's non-stop to Hong Kong.

Saudia: The Domestic Network, c.1979

Unclear who was the intended audience of this 1979 print advert for Saudia. Were there really that many potential customers who needed to reach innermost Arabia but seek an alternative to the Saudi state carrier? The airline's golden key promised to unlock such likely remote arid outposts as Abha, Badana, Bisha, Gassim, Gurayet, Hail, Jouf, Najran, Qausimah, Rafha, Sharourah, Turaif and Wedjh (all premiering on Timetablist with this post). No town in Saudi Arabia is more than 70 miles from a modern jet airport, the airline boasts.

Handsome cartography all the same, with the watercolor effect of receding waves (notice the absence of Africa at left) and indicating the mountainous regions of Hejaz, Yemen and Iran.

Saudia: The only non-stop flight between Los Angeles and Saudi Arabia, 2014

Continuing to look at advertisements for new long-haul service out of California, this glossy magazine page celebrates the launch of thrice-weekly Los Angeles-Jeddah-Riyadh service on a brand-new Saudia B777-368ER. Interestingly, Saudia arrived at LAX before its fast-growing Gulf rivals Qatar Airways, and Etihad; since the March launch Etihad has commenced A340 flights to Abu Dhabi, and   Emirates operates the world's longest A380 route to L.A., but still Qatar Airways has yet to land in Hollywood.

JAL: San Francisco-Tokyo Haneda on the Dreamliner: The quickest way to Metropolitan Tokyo, 2014

JAL may have the fastest service on board brand-new planes, opening up frontiers in intercontinental flights from the here-to-fore mostly domestic airport at Haneda to California aboard a brand-new B787 Dreamliner, but it certainly has chosen a World Wide Web 1.0 fashion to publicize its pioneering: this banner advert looks like it was made in about 1998.

United: One-Airline Service from the Pacific Northwest to Tokyo and Hong Kong, c.1985

Back in the mid-1980s, when East Asia was still referred to as "the Orient" and frequent flier programs were still new, it was apparently quite remarkable to be able to fly from a "top 100 U.S. business center" to the exotic Far East—not non-stop or one-stop, but one-airline. Nowadays, of course, airline alliances mean that what color the plane is painted in hardly matters any more, but in those days, printing boarding passes and baggage handling still were worth bragging about it print. Not entirely clear whether Portland, Oregon had trans-Pacific service as well, but clearly Seattle was acting as a gateway. United flew SeaTac-Tokyo until only last year; but today Delta is the main U.S. carrier with intercontinental services.