Kenya Airways: The Asian Network, April 2016

The eastward route map of Kenya Airways shows the airline's on-going presence across Asia, with nonstops to Dubai, Mumbai, and Bangkok with onward service to Hong Kong, and its newest service, to Guangzhou via Hanoi. At a time of highly-publicized, humiliating troubles for the airline, after a decade of ambitious growth and fleet renewal, it appears that KQ's Asian network is still going strong.

This portion of the map also provides some detail on the airline wide-range connections across the east African coast, from Djibouti to Dzaoudzi. Also visible is the airline's new route to Bangui, the development that started this series of posts.

The map also includes a large variety of codeshare operations, which, as this blog has argued recently, is seldom helpful in a complex route map. While oneWorld partner flights across Asia, connecting to Seoul on Korean or Shanghai on China Southern, are somewhat illustrative, the services to Australia on Etihad are particularly odd, as Kenya Airways does not serve Abu Dhabi (the airline ended flights there in 2014). The Nairobi—Mauritius—Perth trans-Indian Ocean link is interesting.

Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: The African Routes

Qatar Airways has not merely mimicked its rival Emirates in expanding across Africa, but has in several cases gone beyond the Dubai-based carrier to destinations which it now serves alone. These include more recent additions to the Qatar network, such as Kigali, Maputo (which has had a short and somewhat rocky history as a destination, served thrice-weekly with a Dreamliner), Marrakesh and Windhoek (added only back in October), but also more proximate East African destinations such as Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar (the latter served by flyDubai). The airline competes with Emirates on the major routes from Cape Town to Casablanca, but is not anywhere near as strong in West Africa, flying only to Lagos. 

Kenya Airways: The Eastern and Southern Africa Routes, 2011.

A detail of the previous post showing the Kenya Airways network stretching across eastern and Southern Africa: non-stops to Gaborone and Johannesburg, and a inter-linked network of services to Lusaka, Lilongwe, Harare and Maputo, whereas Nampula in northern Mozambique is served non-stop. There are also direct flights to Lubumbashi and Ndola in the trans-national copperbelt, and flights stretching into the Indian Ocean to Antananarivo, Moroni and Victoria in the Seychelles. Zanzibar is connected to Mombasa, Bujumbura and Kigali are also linked. Flights northwards include Juba and in the Horn of Africa Addis Ababa and Djibouti.

Ethiopian Airlines: the Gateway Route, c.1965

Decades before it spanned to five continents, Ethiopian Airlines was still a leading carrier, yet with a more modest reach. This vintage advert from a mid-century magazine emphasizes Ethiopian's Frankfurt-Athens-Cairo-Asmara-Addis Ababa-Nairobi axis, flown overnight aboard the luxurious DC-6B. The Queen of Sheba's secondary east-west routes to Khartoum, Djibouti and Aden are also shown.

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.

Turkish Airlines: the African destinations, 2013

It's surprisingly anachronistic to find a printed timetable in 2013, complete with glossy dust-jacket and newspaper-thin black-and-white sheets inside. Yet Turkish Airlines still apparently publishes such a volume, which displays the breadth of what is suddenly the world's sixth largest airline.

To illustrate the density of this nascent megacarrier, the timetable shows several maps of the airline's vast, pentacontinental network. Here is the astonishing variety of the airline's destinations in Africa, where it has eclipsed its many European rivals in terms of number of cities served, and is well ahead of even the Gulf super-carriers in its sub-Saharan system, as it has landed in airports as uncommon as Nouakchott and Niamey, Kilimanjaro and Kinshasa, Mombasa and Mogadishu. The arrival of a Turkish B737-800 in the Somali capital last year made global headlines, and more recently a Turkish firm won the contract to administer the airport. Note the Turkish spelling as Djibouti as Cibuti.

Further expansion is underway, another Turkish B737-800 will land at N'Djamena via Kano before year's end.

Kenya Airways Destinations, 2011 (#2)

The vast reach of Kenya Airways, the 21st century Queen of Africa's skies, is reflected in this index of cities served from the back of a boarding pass from mid-2011. Major hubs such as Addis Ababa, Lagos and Johannesburg are mixed with smaller capitals such as Ouagadougou, Yaoundé, and Brazzaville, and rarer airports such as Moroni, referred to here as Comoros. Dubai, Mumbai, and other key connections in Asia and Europe are also included (The previous post labels the other destinations listed here).

Ethiopian Airlines: The Wonderland Route to Kenya, c.1955

In the colonial era, when only Ethiopia was not under European control, Ethiopian Airlines flew its DC-6s on the "Wonderland Route" between Addis Ababa and Nairobi in the Kenya Colony. Also advertised are Aden, Djibouti, Egypt (presumably Cairo), Sudan (surely Khartoum), Eritrea (likely Asmara), Pakistan (possibly Karachi), Saudi Arabia and "East Africa." Shown on the cover of this brochure is an office block labeled "America House" which is presumably Ethiopian's office in pre-independence Nairobi. Exact date of the item is unknown.

Ethiopian Airlines Network, c.1972

Via this website, it is a colorful brochure espousing the wonders of the Hidden Empire, including this straightforward network map of the flag carrier. Ethiopian then reached 18 international destinations in Europe, Asia and spanning the African continent from Asmara to Abidjan and Dar Es Salaam to Douala.

The domestic map shows an enormous coverage within the diverse country, with more than 40 destinations from the Red Sea to the Blue Nile, most served at the time with DC-3 aircraft-- as the brochure states, the flagship B707s, shown in the above image on the apron at Addis Ababa Bole Airport, were reserved for the intercontinental services to Delhi and Rome.

Kenya Airways: The African Network, mid-2010

Kenya Airways' rapid expansion across its home continent is evident in the great breadth and depth of this route map, especially in comparison with the same article from just a year previous.

Kenya is still predominant across its home region, connecting neighboring East African cities, but with a large number of southbound routes, including a new link to Gaborone, Botswana.

Although not the focus of this and the following post, redlines reaching the page's edges show links to Europe and Asia. The three European destinations are suggested to be above the top of the page, although both Amsterdam and Paris are located on the visible portion of Europe.

The next post details the route networks which stretch across the Central and Western portions of the continent.

Ethiopian Airlines: Systemwide Network, 1971

A bright red route map of an earlier Ethiopian Airlines, long before it had reached China or the United States, but when it was already a pioneer in African aviation.

On its home continent, Ethiopian stretched to Abidjan and Accra in the west, and only as far as Dar Es Salaam in the south. Sizable stations existed at Khartoum, Asmara, and, of course, Addis Ababa. Rome was linked with these three as the primary European destination, as it is today. Paris, Frankfurt and Athens were also within its web, the latter direct from Asmara or via Cairo.

Although Far Eastern points were beyond its reach at the time, the airline already served an array of Asian cities: Karachi, Delhi, and, interestingly, two cities in Yemen: Taiz and Aden. Only Delhi is still a destination, forty years later.

Ethiopian Airlines: The Eastern & Southern African Routes, 2011

Ethiopian Airlines has long been the premier carrier of the African continent. Prior to the establishment of many state carriers (or even the independence of some African nations), the wings of the Lion of Judah was lauded for its technical proficiency and service.

The airline has not let time, and the development of other formidable African airlines (especially neighboring Kenya Airways), diminish its presence of the continent or its standing as a global carrier. Many African countries lack a home airline or flag carrier, and in the rapid consolidation of airlines around global alliances, it is the largest operations that seem destined to retain their identities. Ethiopian is unquestionably well-positioned as a regional, continental, and global airline.

Over the next four posts, Timetablist will detail Ethiopian Airlines current planet-wide network, which reaches four continents, including an impressive presence in Europe and growing service to China.

In this first post, the headquarters hub at Addis Ababa's Bole Airport pulls in passengers from across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa.

Air France: The African Routes, 1977. Detail #1: East Africa & the Indian Ocean

Compared to the Western portion of the continent, where Air France was absent in 1977 and is quite present today, the Eastern half of Africa was much more thickly webbed by Hippodrome jets than it is today.

Air France does not even service Nairobi any more, but it was an important way-station between Europe and the former colonies of the Indian Ocean, with a stretching nonstop from CDG. Similarly, its amazing to see Djibouti as a massive hub, linked in a Cairo-Jeddah-Addis Ababa axis and also linked to the entire Francophone archipelago.

Other Anglophone cities that Air France has since abandoned include Dar Es Salaam and Entebbe (linked to Athens) as well as the Ethiopian capital. Links between Paris, Mauritius and Madagascar remain important today, but the native carriers of the region take a sizable share of the loads on their wide-body jets to Europe. Mahé is no longer an Air France destination, and Bujumbura and Kigali were also dropped, but still served from northwestern Europe by Brussels Airlines.

See previous post for other portion of this route map.

Air France: The African Routes, July 2009

Air France and KLM, united as one company, dominate routes to Africa. Air France still serves nearly every former colonial capital, and KLM, an oil industry favorite, with strong East African services, overlays this network well. Taken with Skyteam's Kenya Airways affiliation, and the alliance is an African powerhouse (and a highly profitable venture).