Norwegian Long Haul: Current and Future Routes, Summer 2017.

It is by now obvious to remark that the world's aviation market is now at the dawn of a golden age of low-cost long-haul flying. While largely pioneered in parts of Australasia, the fast-expanding boom is currently focused on the North Atlantic market, led by the seemingly now-ubiquitous Norwegian Air Shuttle. 

From its first B787 deliveries, the airline has forayed far and wide, first to Fort Lauderdale and New York JFK, then Bangkok. At the beginning of this year, the young but well-funded airline shocked the Northern Hemisphere with the sudden announcement of a huge capacity increase, made possible by the arrival of brand-new next-generation B737Max jets. Norwegian paired off six northwestern European cities: Belfast, Bergen, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh and Shannon, with three New England airports: Hartford, Providence, and, most surprisingly, Stewart Airport in suburban Westchester County, New York. As can be seen above, the map is now to crowded to follow each individual route line. 

Further complicating comprehension, this route map also has almost as many future destinations as current operations. Over the next twelve months, the ever-growing fleet of red-throated Dreamliners will take to the Scandinavian skies to reach a further four U.S. airports: Austin, Chicago, Denver and Seattle are all scheduled before summer 2018. Norwegian also continues its Southeast Asian expansion with the addition of Gatwick-Singapore in September, going head-to-head with aviation's biggest players in a highly competitive corridor. 

That flight will not be the airline's only super long-haul out of Gatwick. Within the same time frame, Norwegian will also reach its first South American destination, Buenos Aires, from Gatwick. A rather unexpected venture, the route is especially noteworthy not only as Norwegian spreads to yet another continent, but that the airline already has a long-haul base under development at Barcelona, where IAG's brand-new LCLH Level is flying to Buenos Aires, which, furthermore, is in direct competition with legacy flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas, one of that once-great carrier's few remaining European destinations.

With industry observers already questioning the Norwegian's rapid long-haul expansion and its business practices in general, we'll have to see if Norwegian can really maintain these routes, much less continue its global domination. 

Mohawk Airlines Network, August 1991

From the delightful Departed Flights blog, which is sadly itself departed and apparently defunct, is this rare route map of Mohawk Air Lines from August 1991. Even a decade after deregulation, its fascinating to see how regionally-limited some airlines were.

A crudely-drawn map of the northeastern United States, with a blunted Maryland and only partial Virginia and West Virginia, shows a system extending only from Boston to Buffalo. In between, short-hop connections between Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany, and Binghamton, connect to La Guardia, Hartford, and Boston-Logan. These upstate tier cities could only dream to have the hub status they once enjoyed here: most of these trips are now made by the New York Thruway, not via air.  Atlantic City lies outside Mohawk's orbit, a distant dream.

Special Thanks to the excellent Departed Flights blog for access to its collection. 

Allegheny Airlines: Systemwide Network, 1963

Allegheny Airlines, the pride of the Northeast, had a taught span across the spine of Appalachia. Mainline schedules between a northern terminus at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and a southernmost end at Washington, cross-hatched with activity out of its strong bases at Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, Providence and Baltimore.

Many municipal airfields which have no commercial service today, including those at Wheeling, New London, Bridgeport, Reading, were linked to regional capitals in Allegheny's cats-cradle.

The most distant routes reached the Great Lakes, splitting from Jamestown on the shores of Lake Chautauqua, continuing northward to reach Buffalo and westward to Erie, where it split again to either of those great mid-American metropoli, Cleveland and Detroit. A southwestern spur from Pittsburgh plunged down the Ohio River Valley, touching Wheeling, Marietta, and terminating at Huntington-Ashland.

Allegheny would, fifteen years after the publication of this map, and in the frenzied era of deregulation, form the basis for USAir, which would in turn lead Pittsburgh and Baltimore through massive airport expansions as major mid-continent and mid-Atlantic hubs. Today, only USAirway's presence at Philadelphia and its general prominence in the metro Washington and New York markets lend any veneration to its Alleghenian origins.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: LAX

Los Angeles has never been a dedicated first-tier hub for American, but the airline continues to profit from wealthy origin-and-destination traffic to far corners of its network. Shown here is a short-lived LAX-Seoul service, the only Eagle-emblazoned trans-Pacific flight; other Asian cities are linked by other carriers, as are codeshare offerings to the South Pacific with Qantas. Silver jets spread their wings  on two direct flights to the Hawaiian Islands. A measure of Meso-american non-stops links Mexican leisure destinations and capital cities. The long-range flagship services link L.A. to London and Paris.