Arrivals at O.R. Tambo, August 2017

A mid-day Arrivals board for O.R. Tambo from a week or so after the previous posts, showing an all-African schedule at the continent's largest airport. Most are operated by hometown carrier South African Airways, and most flights are from the southern African region; indeed, the schedule represents almost every nation in the SADC league, with Gaborone, Botswana appearing three times, from the first, third, and second-to-last flight. Air Botswana operates that third flight, as well as one before it to remote Francistown.

There are other regional connections from Maseru, in Lesotho, the nation that is famously completely surrounded by South Africa; other nearby capitals of almost every other country that borders South Africa Maputo, Windhoek, Blantyre, and Lusaka flights by SAA, and a rare Air Zimbabwe flight from Harare is unsurprisingly delayed. Further afield, there is the trans-ocean service on Air Mauritius arriving just before noon.  The more distant continental connections are the ubiquitous rivalry of Kenya Airways from Nairobi, Ethiopian from Addis Ababa, and Fastjet from Dar Es Salaam—that low-cost start-up's longest route. 

International Departures from O.R. Tambo Airport, July 2017

Staying at the southern end of Africa, a schedule of three hours worth of international departures from O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, the busiest airport on the African continent. The board is dominated by hometown carrier South African Airways, with flights to Walvis Bay and Windhoek, both in Namibia; Lusaka, and Livingstone in Zambia; Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and Entebbe in Uganda, as well as the final flight shown, to Harare, about two hours after Fastjet's flight to the Zimbabwean capital. 

Indian ocean airlines are also seen here: Air Mauritius and Air Seychelles leave ten minutes apart. Ethiopian Airlines connects to Addis Ababa. 

Kenya Airways: Africa in Focus, March 2016

This route map showing Kenya Airways's vast operations across Africa can be seen as something of a key to the graphic in the advertisement shown in yesterday's post, although, strangely, Bangui itself has been left off the map. Routes span outward from Nairobi, naturally, although KQ continues to maintain something of a mini-hub in Accra to connect to Freetown and Monrovia, and Bamako is linked in with Dakar. There is likewise a set of interlinking routes in Southern Africa, connecting Lilongwe with Lusaka, Lusaka with Harare, and Harare with Livingston, at Victoria Falls.

Imperial Airways, 1937: The African Routes

As with its trans-Asian operations shown yesterday, the technology available to Imperial Airways in the early age of aviation necessitated a series of regular way stations for the royal charter's southerly system spanning Africa.

After the upper Nile, the line made its way to Khartoum, whence it splits, with one line turning to the west: Kano—Lagos—Accra and finally Takoradi, which only has domestic links today. There must have been pitstops in the drylands of French Central Africa but these are unnamed here; the paths of the green routes, connecting Algeria and Morocco to Niger and then the Congo, and reaching across to Madagascar, suggest French operations.

Continuing to follow the Nile south, the Cairo-to-Cape line stopped at Malakal, toady in South Sudan, then fanned across British East Africa in a complex web which appears to shown that one set of services remained inland along the Great Rift, passing through Nairobi on the way to Lusaka, Salisbury (today Harare) and Bulawayo in Rhodesia, and  then finally ending at Johannesburg. 

Another schedule reached the Swahili coast at Mombasa—Dar Es Salaam—(Ma)lindi and coastal Mozambique, with a bridge connection through Nyasaland at Blantyre, passing through Lourenço Marques (today Maputo) to terminate at Durban. The unlabeled green lines with the Union clearly suggest an early-stage South African Airways, reaching both Cape Town and Windhoek. 

Ethiopian Airlines: The East African Destinations, Spring 2013

Of the more than four dozen African cities that Ethiopian serves, it is particularly strong in its home region of East Africa.

Ethiopian Airlines: Three times per week from Addis Ababa to Blantyre, April 2013

Ethiopian Airlines has been in fierce competition with its east African rival, Kenya Airways, to connect the continent through its hub at Addis Ababa's Bole Airport. Earlier this year, it launched flights to Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital and second largest city, which is served by only handful of airlines. Malawian aviation has suffered greatly this year due to the indefinite suspension of Air Malawi. 

South African Airways: the Southern African destinations 2013

Following from the previous post, this promotional brochure shows the ease of connecting to the southern cone of Africa from South African Airways's gateways in Europe: Munich, Frankfurt, and London Heathrow, via Johannesburg. With the map superimposed, these long-haul legs seem mercifully short. Cities in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Malawi are shown, as well as the airline's many domestic destinations. In most cases, especially outside of South Africa, the proposition is to fly from Europe to OR Tambo, passing over a final destination, before tracking back to reach it on a local connection.

Zambia Airways Routes, c.1980

A vintage (though undated) Zambia Airways timetable cover features a route map which fascinates with where the state carrier both did and did not fly. The only ex-African routes are to Europe, with non stops to London and Rome, the latter which branches off firstly to Frankfurt and then, bizarrely, to Belgrade. While East Africa's capitals are included, neither Rhodesia nor South Africa are served, presumably blockaded due to apartheid. No domestic routes are shown, aside from service from Livingston, at Victoria Falls. Maputo's Portuguese name is provided in parenthesis. The farthest eastern destination is Mauritius; the airline had yet to reach Bombay or Jeddah. There are no West African services, much less than flagship route to New York.

East African Airways International Routes, c.1974

From an obscure but delightful website comes this under-decorated, tricolored rarity: the extent of East African Airways at the height of its operations, with more than twenty cities in three continents from the Nairobi-Dar Es Salaam-Entebbe triangle.

Associates' routes increase the destinations: Accra, Lagos, Kinshasa, Seychelles, and Cairo are shown, with farther routes spanning out to East Asia, or even Australia in the case of the trans-Indian line from Mauritius. The springboard from London surely lands in America and out of Copenhagen comes a longitudinal shot suggesting a trans-polar route.

The year is a total guess, but the graphic design gives an early-to-mid-70s hint, and surely these long European routes were run by VC-10s, which were not even ordered until 1969.

East African sadly ground to a halt in '77, to be replaced by national carriers, of which Kenya Airways is unquestionably the most successful successor. That carrier has a great many more African routes but not nearly the reach into Europe as shown here some 35 years ago.

East African Airways: Summer Timetable, 1974

Within the pages of this brochure, issued for midyear 1974, are two maps showing the extent of East African Airways networks. On the left, a landless, geometric schematic shows East African's services in its home region, with five routes each out of Entebbe and Nairobi to London, Athens, Frankfurt, and Zürich, with connections between them as well as onward service from Frankfurt and Rome to Copenhagen. Nairobi also had a small Asian circuit: Aden-Karachi-Bombay, whereas Dar Es Salaam's only trans-ocean operation was a Tananarive-Mauritius leg.

Cooperative services are shown to Lagos, Accra, Cairo, Tokyo and the Seychelles, with arrows pointing outwards from Blantyre, Mauritius, Seychelles, London and Copenhagen, presumably to other corners of the Globe.

This item has been borrowed from the terrific website Timetable Images, which graciously allows reposting of its collection under creative commons. Special Thanks to Björn Larsson.

The next post will detail the second panel of the map, showing East African Airway's "domestic" services.