Qatar Airways Worldwide Network, 2011. Detail # 1: The Gulf Region & Western Hemisphere

Continuing from the last post, here is the first in a series of posts about Qatar Airways from back in 2011, when it began on to nip at the heels of super-rival Emirates, chasing that megacarrier to all corners of the globe in the formative decades of the ME3. 

Origin & destination traffic is not nearly as important as making Doha a global megahub like Dubai, even before the state-of-the-art Hamad International Airport even opened. Hence, early extension all the way to Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, as well as a fledgling operation to the four United States gateways, with Chicago in bright green, either as a cargo destination or in anticipation of its 2012 announcement of its new thrice-weekly passenger service which began in November 2013. These all connect with Qatar's regional, "Intra-Gulf" network—a triangle of cities between Kuwait, Muscat and Jeddah.

While only showing 14 cities on 3 continents on this page, dozens of other dots sprout across North America—presumably code-share connections although the map does not bother to explain.

Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: The GCC and South America

Like Etihad and Emirates, the ultra-long haul routes to South America are Qatar Airways rarest expeditions. A single Doha—São Paulo—Buenos Aires route makes Hamad International Airport a six-continent hub. 

Given the dearth of Latin American routes, this corner of the route map features an eye-glass inset of the GCC, showing Qatar's numerous routes to the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, which connect on Qatar to an impressive eight destinations, including Hofuf, which premieres on the Timetablist here for the first time. 

Gulf Air Network, October 2016: The Westward Routes

Continuing from the previous post, Gulf Air still has a strong presence in its home region, particularly into Saudi Arabia, with service to six cities including smaller airports like Taif and Gassim. There are also flights to three cities in Iran. Gulf Air was once a bigger actor in Eastern Africa having withdrawn from Nairobi only as recently as 2012, but today only reaches Khartoum and Addis Ababa. 

Note that the map on the last post boasted of 42 cities in 25 countries, whereas this counts 44 cities in 24 countries. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: the Near Asian & East African Routes

Picking up from where we left off before the end of the year, when we had exhaustively examined the redesign of Emirates Airline's route map, here is the example of its counterpart, barely 130 kms down the national highway in Abu Dhabi: Etihad, officially the national airline of the UAE. 

The smaller but, if anything, more luxurious rival connects its home base to six continents, shown here and in the next several posts of this week with an examination of its rather pedestrian route map from the September edition of its in-flight publication. 

Starting in this post, the routes radiate out from Abu Dhabi, as does every single flight of the airline. The airlines geographic extent mirrors, in lesser form, the six-continent coverage of its rival. All the usual regional capitals are served, but more often with narrow-body A320s than with the widebodies of Emirates. Equally well-covered are the south Asian gateways, economically important but also bridges to the vast majority of the UAE's foreign labor force.

We will look further east in Asia in the next few posts, but for now it is interesting to note the strong appearances in Kazakhstan. While a number of airlines fly to Almaty, the former capital and large commercial center, it is somewhat rarer to also service Astana, the new-built capital on the steppes. 

With far fewer routes to Africa than Emirates, Etihad has but one interesting distinction, if not exactly an advantage: its non-stop flight to Mahe is in cooperation with Air Seychelles, in which Eithad acquired a 40% stake.

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The Middle East

For a long-haul, all-widebody airline, Emirates has not retreated from the short-haul demands of its home region—recognizing the feeder traffic into its immense global network (even as the immediate region is inundated with competition from other state carriers, as well as its friendly home town rivalry with low-cost FlyDubai). 

Here too, Emirates has utilized its superjumbo A380s on routes to Jeddah (three times per day), Kuwait, and, most recently, to Doha—the world's shortest A380 route. While seemingly untenable, the short operations optimize the scheduling efficiency of the ultra-long-haul behemoth.

Even where two decks of seats would be overkill, Emirates employs its B777s and A330s from Beirut to Muscat, often offering far more tickets on each flight than the competition's B737s and A320s. 

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.

Addis Ababa Bole Airport Departures 23 April 2013, #2

The second screen of Addis Ababa's Bole Airport evening departures show many more options on Ethiopian Airlines near and far, from Muscat to Washington, Tel-Aviv to Stockholm, reflecting the breadth of the ancient country's modern connections both in terms of trade and diaspora communities.

Air India: the Gulf Routes, c.2012

Air India has more routes to the Gulf than what remains of its European, North American, or nonexistent African network but still the coverage is spare. Cairo is not served, Kuwait is farmed out, and there is no direct service from such megacities as Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad or Amritsar (that latter three not even shown here) but only from the Keralan coastal centers of Kozhikode, Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Major Gulf hubs such as Doha and Bahrain are also absent. The label for Abu Dhabi is far removed from its dot, also. Everything about the contemporary Air India, a sad shadow of its former self, indicates an airline out of focus.

KLM: Tracking Flights over Africa and the Middle East, November 2011

A screen shot from the evening of 11 November 2011, from KLM's delightful flight tracking utility from the airline's website, revealing some of the Dutch airline's unique destinations in the region.

Icons of a handful of jets, all making their way south of the Sahara from Schiphol, are mostly nearing their destinations: Flight to Accra is still on the Algeria-Mali border, while the thrice-weekly Flight #KL577 to Kano is still over Niger. As has been mentioned in previous posts, KLM is the last European airline to serve the northern Nigerian metropolis. Nearby, the nightly Flight #KL587 into Lagos is brushing over the northeasternmost section of Benin before its initial descent.

On the other side of Africa, Flight #KL567/569/571, which may have stopped in Arusha/Kilimanjaro airport, is on final approach to Dar Es Salaam, while the Flight KLM#535/537 from Kigali is already heading north back to Entebbe, a route which at the time of this viewing had just passed its one-year anniversary. The two non stops from Amsterdam to South Africa, to #KL597 Cape Town and #KL591 to Johannesburg, are over Namibia and Zambia, respectively. Amsterdam is the only European city besides London which is connected to Cape Town.

At the upper left, a trio of Gulf-bound Flying Dutchmen cluster over Kuwait on their way to either Dammam, Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or perhaps even Muscat. Whereas a number of international airlines used to serve King Fahd International in Dammam, KLM is one of the few that remains.

Oman Air: Worldwide Network, 2011. Detail #1: Middle East

Continued from the previous post: Omar Air in its home region. Even prior to its 2009 intercontinental expansion, Oman Air's network covered a number of cities in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

Syrianair Network c. 2005-6: Detail of Mediterranean, Mid-East and Gulf Destinations

The jagged lines of Syrianair's network ricochet across its home region, especially the Gulf, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.