British Caledonian Schedule, 1977

A few pages from the timetable of British Caledonian Airways in 1977, demonstrating the breadth of its reach at the height of its operations, reaching on its own metal to Banjul while codesharing extensively with Air Afrique, Air France, and UTA Overseas French Airlines to Abidjan, Abu Dhabi, Bangui, and Baghdad with other connections to Bangkok and Bahrain on other carriers such as Singapore, KLM, Qantas, Gulf Air, and Thai Airways. The flight to Barbados is a rare bit of history: IQ2/IQ4 was a Martinair Holland DC-10 flying for the old Caribbean Airlines. 

Interspersed vintage black-and-white sketches give a flavor of the High Classic Jet Age, while an in-page advert feature's the airlines cargo operations. 

Nigeria Airways: The Right Connections for Nigeria and West Africa, May 1979 (1 of 2)

Having now extensively reviewed the myriad airlines of contemporary and recent Nigeria, this New Year's Day we look back almost forty years to the era of the Winged Elephant, when the green-striped jets of Nigeria Airways ruled the skies.

Similar to previous features on The Timetablist, the national carrier was seeking the discerning eye of the Air Transport World reader in May, 1979, boasting of its "luxurious DC10," to "the nerve center of business in Africa," Lagos, but also throughout West Africa, as is helpfully shown in the route map at lower left.

What is today an aviation market arranged around the twin poles of Lagos and Abuja was, before Abuja was realized, organized between the southern hub of Lagos and the northern gateway of Kano, from whence intercontinental flights crossed the Sahara to European metropoles, including Rome and Amsterdam, but likewise eastward to the Middle East; the Kano—Jeddah link was recently revived but in those days the operation had the somewhat unusual final termination point of Karachi. A sort of code share, presumably on Egyptair, linked Cairo—Athens. Note also the cross-border link from Kano to Niamey, Niger. 

There was a second non-stop to London from Lagos, but mostly this was the start of the coastal routes along West Africa's edge, Cotonou—Lomé—Accra—Abidjan—Monrovia, where the widebody headed nonstop for New York JFK, while the smaller elements of the fleet linked Freetown—Banjul—Dakar and back in a minihub. There was a nonstop from Lagos to Douala, and also a connection to southeastern Calabar, as well as flights to Libreville and Nairobi. 

Senegal Airlines Route Network, 2015

The Timetablist celebrated the launch of Senegal Airlines in 2011, as it replaced the defunct Air Senegal and promised a bright future: well capitalized, with a new fleet, able to take advantage of Dakar's natural position at the far-western tip of the African continent.

Sadly, despite Senegal's continued stability and even growth, the airline lasted barely five years. This graphic, an unhelpfully small file size, is one of the few scraps of the airline's history that remains online. It shows the extent of the airline's ambition, although it is challenging to confirm what was realized: was there ever a secondary hub in Cotonou? Here is evidence that at least the Cotonou—Libreville operation existed. Was either Paris or Brussels ever served? Seems, definitely, no.

Arik Air: the international destinations, c.2013

A floor display banner of a bright pomegranate shade, standing in a West African ticket office, shows the rather-recent reach of Arik Air, the de-facto flag carrier of Nigeria. Previous Timetablist posts have shown a similar extent, from its 20-odd domestic destinations (detailed in the next post)and impressive West-African network to both Anglophone and Francophone cities, to the prestigious, premier routes of Johannesburg, and most especially the wet-lease intercontinental operations to New York and London.

The lone city that doesn't fit into these three categories is Luanda, a twice-weekly regional jet route that was nearly axed earlier this year. Unlike other Arik maps, this fails to detail actual route links; only one single meridian line passes through the headquarters at Lagos, while a second arc seems to indicate the edge of the earth, beyond which lie New York and London.

Gambia Airways Timetable, July 1991

Staying with the previous post in the Gambian capital of Banjul, a rare artifact featured on the excellent, encyclopedic Airline Memorabilia website, this tidbit of West African aviation history: the seven-city weekly flight schedule of all-too-brief Gambia Airways, effective July 1991.

The type-written table shows a six-day per week connection to neighboring Dakar, which reaches further as the week swells, hopping to Praia in the Cabo Verde Islands on Thursday, and culminating in a hectic Friday, with the morning flight heading southward to tiny Bissau, and the returning service passing through Banjul and stretching to the network's northernmost extent at Nouakchott in the afternoon.

Saturday afternoon is also busy, with a southeasterly service to Conakry and Freetown. Sunday sees the airline return to Nouakchott, perhaps a somewhat curious choice for the only city besides Dakar to be served more than once per week.

The schedule was apparently not commercially successful, as Gambia Airways was extremely short-lived, the last picture of one of its Japanese turboprops dates from October 1994, and very little other information exists on the internet.

Special thanks to Airline Memorabilia for this featured item. 

Royal Air Maroc: Monrovia to Banjul, February 2010

Among the intra-African services provided by Royal Air Maroc are a number of regional flights between West African cities, as many capitals are paired together, creating an intermediate stop between the coast and Casablanca, and a chance to ferry passengers across these local borders, something which still today often has far too few options.

Here is an example from early 2010: Flight AT598 from Monrovia Robertsfield to Banjul, Gambia. Note the ungodly hours of 1AM to 2:40AM and a return at 3:05AM to 4:45AM; apparently this is to set the schedule for connecting flights at the Casablanca hub to Europe. Since this itinerary was printed, the service linking Robertsfield has been moved up slightly to be closer to daily hours, and now connects via Freetown's Lungi Airport.

Royal Air Maroc: The African destinations, 2011

Le Réseau Royal Air Maroc du Afrique shows the impressive extension of the airline's West and Central African operations as they stood in mid-2011. From Nouakchott to Niamey, Banjul to Brazzaville, Conakry to Kinshasa, RAM successfully bridges both the Anglophone and Francophone checkerboard of the region.

The map lacks route lines, which would be particularly helpful as many of these destinations are linked together before reaching the home airport at Casablanca (Freetown-Monrovia, for instance). Also, to connect with European and other intercontinental flights, many sub-Saharan cities are served at odd hours of the night—not the most convenient schedule, but for many of these cities, one of the few options out of town.

Air Afrique: The schedule from Dakar, 1990

Finishing this Air Afrique week on Timetablist, the schedule from Dakar's Yoff Airport, the multinational airline’s second home. Flights far and wide are displayed here, including cities far outside of the airline’s own network, from Bangkok to Chicago. In Europe, West Berlin and Bucharest are helpfully shown, while Atlanta (connection to Delta or Eastern) and Addis Ababa (connecting to Ethiopian at Abidjan) are featured as well. Special thanks again to Airline Memorabilia for the original posting.

Air Afrique: The schedule from Paris, 1990

Our second Air Afrique week continues, as does the cross-posting from Airline Memorabilia of the mid-1990 schedule from Air Afrique. This page rounds out the last of the Ouagadougou connections and starts the listings to and from Paris Charles de Gaulle, the premier destination for the multinational airline. Near-daily DC-10s departed from the primary hubs of Abidjan and Dakar (the schedule includes UTA DC-10s and B747s), while connections to Accra on Ghana Airways are shown below. UTA and Air Afrique also shared direct and on-stop connections from Bamako, Bangui, and Brazzaville.

Same-plan service as well as interline connections via the bigger gateways are shown for Cotonou and Lomé, while other airlines provide connections to Conakry, Lagos and Monrovia. Interestingly, service to secondary French cities such as Bordeaux and Marseille are shown as non-stops, meaning Air Afrique A300s and DC-10s landed in Southern France before reaching Roissy.

ASKY Airlines Schedule, April 2013

The complete network schedule for ASKY Airlines from this spring, helpfully published in their in-flight magazine, detailing their weekly timetable for flights between twenty cities in West and Central Africa, from Banjul to Bamako to Brazzaville.

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: 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.

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.

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.

Accra Kotoka Airport: Tuesday Evening Departures, November 2011

In the evening, most of the long-haul carriers return to their home bases from Accra's Kotoka International Airport, as this segment of the Tuesday schedule from November 2011 shows. These include the northerly, European carriers, such as KLM and British Airways, as well as the somewhat rarer Alitalia departure just prior to midnight, one the Italian carrier's few remaining sub-Saharan services.

Also here are more easterly-based airlines, such as Turkish (via Lagos), Egyptair, Emirates and MEA, the latter routing their Beirut service via Kano. There is also a southerly route on South African Airways which leaves for Johannesburg at 11PM.

Accra Kotoka Airport: Tuesday Midday Departures, November 2011

The middle of Tuesday last November at Accra's Kotoka International Airport shows several various West African connections, including ASKY to Lomé, Air Nigeria to Monrovia, Kenya Airways to Freetown (originating in Nairobi), Emirates to Abidjan (a continuation from Dubai), and United Air Lines to Lagos (having started in Washington). ASKY flies to Freetown and Banjul at mid-afternoon, after Egyptair's departure for Cairo.

Accra Airport, Monday Departures, November 2011

The flight schedule for Accra's Kotoka International Airport from the Ghana Airports Authority for a typical Monday in November 2011 shows 20 departures in a 12 hour period. High-frequency routes for West Africa are those that depart more than once a day, and in this case hops from Accra to Abidjan, Abuja, Monrovia, and above all Lagos make the list, served by regional airlines such as Arik Air and Air Ivoire as well as global carriers looping the two cities into one flight schedule, such as United, Emirates and Egyptair, which turns around for Cairo in the early afternoon.

Other West African connections include Air Burkina to Ouagadougou, ASKY to Freetown, Lomé, and Banjul. At ten minutes to nine, a Virgin Atlantic A340 leaves for London Heathrow; a Delta B767-300 departs for New York JFK fifty minutes later.

The following post continues the analysis of this timetable. 

Brussels Airport Arrival Channel, January 2012: Screen # 1

An early morning broadcast of the arrivals schedule for Brussels National Airport in January 2012, broadcast on the televisions in the guest rooms at the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel. Although the first flight in is a charter from Casablanca, the screen is dominated by Brussels Airlines's overnight arrivals from tropical Africa: the Cotonou-Ouagadougou SN264, Conakry-Banjul SN224, and Kigali-Entebbe SN465. Also an early flight from Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, and a United Airlines B777 service from Washington Dulles.

Brussels Airlines: Routes to Africa, November 2011

Similar to yesterday's post, this interactive map is from Austrian Airlines's website but shows its Star Alliance sister, Brussels Airlines, and its routes to Africa.

The route lines themselves are delightfully stylized into bouquet-like bunches, but do not reflect actual flight patterns from Brussels, which often triangulate between two African cities and Belgium, such as Abidjan and Monrovia.

Other cities which are marked but not named indicate the destinations of yet other Star Alliance Partners, as well as Brussels Airlines itself-- no less than its premiere African destination, Kinshasa, is not labeled here, perhaps suggesting that Austrian does not codeshare on the route. BMI, which reaches Freetown in West Africa and Addis Ababa in the east, is also shown in the key at the far bottom left as a possible partner.

Note that Brussels is closing its Accra station one month from the date of this post--its rare that a route to Africa, especially booming Ghana, is not a success.

Spanair: International Routes from Barcelona, 2011

Where the previous post's graphic of Spanair's reach from El Prat was fanciful, this is more straightforward: a map of the wide array of Spanair non stops from Barcelona, reaching three continents, including two Sub-Saharan routes to Banjul and Bamako. Prior to its demise, Spanair was expanding rapidly across Africa, although the airline's Wikipedia entry, which lists Dakar and Malabo (but not Banjul) overstates the reach, and seems to conflate Air Europa (which formerly served Malabo and still flies to Dakar) and Spanair. It matters less now, in the wake of Spanair's demise; whatever the destinations, tens of thousands are currently stranded.