Qatar Airways: Worldwide Network, 2011. Detail #2: Africa

Continuing from the previous post: in 2011, Qatar Airways hadn't reached nearly as far on the African continent as arch-rival Emirates, although it had started expanding in the region. Such major gateways as Dakar, Accra, and Addis Ababa are absent, as are oil-capitals such as Luanda or Malabo. Only Lagos in West and Central Africa. Service to Entebbe began in November that year. The Indian Ocean leisure destination Seychelles stands out, as does the historic tourism hub of Luxor in Egypt. 

Imperial Airways: The Worldwide Routes, 1937

The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is one of the world's great cartographic archives; with over 150,000 items in its holdings at Stanford University. Fully searchable and viewable online, it is a wonderful resource. 

The last post, with the global-projection map of Oman Air, has some affinity with the earliest route maps at the down of the pre-war commercial aviation era, specifically this detailed item showing the Air Lines of Imperial Airways in 1937, at an extent which would not be resurrected until after World War Two. 

What is particularly remarkable about this map is how complex it is, with two world projections duplicating similar information, which itself is intertwined with many various, and vaguely articulated 'cooperation' operations carried out by unnamed 'other air transport companies.' 

As expected, the trunk routes of the empire fan out from London, with a trans-European line spanning Central Europe to terminate at Budapest, while a second, trans-Mediterranean line runs from Marseille to Athens to Mirabella (today known as Elounda) in Crete, finally crossing the greater part of the middle sea to reach first Alexandria and then Cairo, from whence the great route begins to touch at way-stations within Britain's various post-Ottoman holdings in the Near East, and ultimately eastward to the major outposts of Empire in India, Malaya, and Australia, as we will see in the next post. 

A second line continues southward toward Luxor, continuing onwards to Sub-Saharan Africa, which a subsequent post will examine in detail.

Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: the Near East

The route map from a recent copy of Qatar Airways's Oryx in-flight magazine is rendered in a delightful mosaic style which disregards national borders or indeed physical topography. While the coastlines of continents are faithfully represented in detail, the landmasses almost look to be assembled in stained glass. 

Overlaid on these overlapping watercolors are the close-laid threads of Qatar Airways vast, six-continent network, today one the very largest of any of the world's airlines. The grey strokes flow outward from Doha in graceful parallels, almost like strands of baleen. 

Over the next week, we will examine this vast route map in detail, but begin here at the center of the map, which shows destinations of the greater Near East, such as the dense service to Mesopotamia and the Caucus. We will look at the huge number of European routes in the following post.  

Kuwait International Airport Departures Board: 14 August 2015

Screen-shot of the departure monitor at Kuwait Airport, 12 months ago. The issue at hand was the massively-delayed British Airways flight from London, shown here as an Iberia codeshare. Kuwait Airways offers the other European flights on the board, its own service to London, as well as Frankfurt. Kuwait also features regional flights out to Amman, Cairo and Jeddah, the latter matched by low-cost rival Jazeera Airways. Emirates is on the board, as it always is everywhere, to where else; this service at times is run with an Airbus A380. Gulf Air runs to Bahrain, but probably on an A320. Air Cairo is an interesting one, with a flight to Alexandria, with its hard-to-read, charmingly-outdated double-pyramid logo. But perhaps the most curious is logo-less flight with code ZV, for Zagros Airlines, running to Shiraz in central Iran—the first time either has been featured on The Timetablist.

United Arab Airlines: Twice Weekly from Alexandria to Athens, c.1960

From the same French shipping news as last week's Alitalia post comes this somewhat smaller, less jet-age advert for United Arab Airlines, for its twice-weekly trans-Mediterreanean service aboard a "de Luxe" Super Viscount from Alexandria to Athens; still a reasonable schedule at just two hours flying time. Today, fifty years later, the route is still alive, but now served by an Egyptair Express Embraer 170 and the flight time has been trimmed down to 1:25.

Timetablist has not featured United Arab Airlines since its infancy back in November 2009.

Libyan Arab Airlines Network, 2007

The much older, but now lesser-known of Libya's two state carriers, Libyan Arab Airlines has in recent years been eclipsed by Afriqiyah Airways, to the point that consolidation of the standard-bearer into the start-up was announced last fall. The two operate under one state holding company.

 

LAA's golden-trimmed jets continued to cover the region, especially North Africa and a handful of regional routes from bases at both Tripoli and Benghazi. It is not surprising that major European hubs such sa Frankfurt, London, Rome and Milan have long been served; Kiev is surely more curious. 

In previous years, LAA has reached further into Europe to cities including Amsterdam, Moscow, and Paris, in 2009 expansion to reach Niamey and Khartoum in the south and China on the other side of the globe was announced, but not acted upon—service south of the Sahara has been the mandate of sister carrier Afriqiyah Airways.

At present, there is no commercial air service out of Libya.

Special thanks to the perhaps-defunct Airliner Dude blog for the original article.

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.

Olympic Airways, Worldwide Network, 2005-2006

Olympic Airlines, once the heirloom of the Onassis family and the great pride of Greece, is due to shut down on December 31, an ignominious end and long decline to one of aviation's once-great carriers. This route map, from barely 5 years ago, shows the global realm diminished but intact, a five-continent network, with A340s stretching to Canada, South Africa, and Australia. Olympic Airlines ended its life with a network limited only to Europe. What was once a span of North American destinations such as Chicago, New York, Toronto, Montreal and Boston, ended its history without a single transatlantic route, and the Greek flag carrier did not extend into Africa beyond Cairo, and did not last as a player on the Kangaroo Route.