Uganda Airlines: Route Map & Timetable, mid-1986

 

A classic handy pocket guide to the operations of Uganda Airlines, which at the height of its glory provided a tri-continental operation from its hub at Entebbe its (single?) 707-320B roared out of equatorial Africa each day. 

The schedule reveals that the quadjet originated in Nairobi on Wednesday, bound for Cologne-Bonn Airport then London Gatwick; on Thursday a noon departure stopped in Rome and then to London, while the Sunday service was Nairobi-Entebbe again and then non-stop to Sussex. 

Uganda Airlines was a strikingly early adopter of Dubai as an extra-continental destination, in the mid-1980s the emirate was decades away from emerging as the regional superhub and its own hometown airline was just celebrating its first birthday at the date of this publication. Nonetheless the Ugandan state carrier redirected its Boeing to southwest Asia, with a Nairobi-Entebbe-Dubai service on Monday and a nonstop on Friday, both staying on the desert tarmac overnight and returning on Tuesday and Saturday morning.  

The cover route map promises onward connections to the Americas from London and "connect Far East" from Dubai. 

KLM Route Network, 1982.

Zooming ahead several decades from yesterday's post, a circuit-board cartography shows the six-continent, circumnavigational system of KLM. Reminiscent of the powerful, dynamic abstractions of Lufthansa's famous spinnernetz Streckenatlas of the same era, the Royal Dutch route network is simplified into web of trunk routes, yielding only general information of the intercontinental connectivity performed by the carrier. Likewise, the continents are represented with mind-bending liberties; Alaska and South America in particular bearing only slight resemblance to their true shapes. The top portion of the literature shows four of KLM's ultramodern jetliners, especially the flagship B747-200Bs, DC-8s and DC-10s. 

It is always remarkable to look back at the route maps of European flag carriers in this era, when more African capitals were served than American cities. Like many of those state airlines of the early jet age, KLM linked Europe to South America via the western edge of Africa, with Casablanca, Tangiers, and Freetown linked together in a right angle which continues on to Monrovia, Accra, Lomé and Lagos, making a northward left at Kano. A single line shoots off of Morocco for Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, ending at Santiago (nearly identical to Iberia's route shown in the previous post). Today, KLM still serves all of these Mercosur cities, except for Montevideo. 

An eastern route crosses the Mediterranean to Cairo, onward to Khartoum, with an elbow passing through Nairobi—Kilimanjaro—Dar Es Salaam to end at Johannesburg. To this day KLM still flies to these three east African cities; indeed, KLM is the only European airline to fly to Kilimanjaro, but sadly and surprisingly, Cairo has been terminated, as was Khartoum. 

The Fastjet Network, April 2016

Of the many arrows that have wounded the mighty Kenya Airways in the past several years—aside from the general decline of Africa's economies from the 'Africa Rising' decade of the early 2000s—the advent of low-cost rivals in its home region has only further eroded its growth.

More so than any other carrier, upstart Fastjet has stolen away passengers with its fleet of new planes offering staggering minuscule airfares. The airline did not decide to go head-to-head in Nairobi, basing its operations in Dar-es-Salaam, which has more of a supply vacuum. 

Rumors that famed aviation entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou of Easyjet fame was launching another airline surfaced in 2011; specific plans for an African low-cost airline emerged in 2012 ahead of Fastjet's November 2012 launch. 

Well capitalized, Fastjet grew quickly through 2015, but has since been dragged by the same headwinds that have hurt Kenya Airways. South Africa has gone from BRIC economy to sinking like a brick. Zimbabwe remains one of the world's least functional states, and Zambia's growth has evaporated with the slumping of the copper price. Not easy turf to turn a profit on.

Throughout last year, a dramatic boardroom battle played out across East African and global business papers, as Stelios mounted a campaign to reform the management of the ailing airline. The ouster was successful, however since that time Fastjet has left the Kenyan and Ugandan markets entirely, and its flights to Zanzibar lasted barely a year.  Several of the services shown above, including its longest route, Dar—Johannesburg, have been scrapped. Still, the airline offers flights domestically within Tanzania and to four other countries, with many fares started at less than US$100.

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. 

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.

East African Airways: The domestic network, c.1975

A compliment to yesterday's post from the same source, showing East African's "domestic" network to more than 20 destinations within Kenya, and Tanzania, along with a single connection to Entebbe-- strange that there is not a stronger regional network, even across Lake Victoria to Mwanza, nor even a connection to Dar Es Salaam. The links along the Swahili coast from Malindi to the Mtwara, at the border with Mozambique, are particularly comprehensive.

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.

Various International Destinations from Frankfurt, Summer 2011

Excerpts from the Summer 2011 Timetable published by Frankfurt International Airport, showing Lufthansa's multiweekly nonstops to sub-Saharan Africa, such as Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Libreville, and Luanda; as well as Ethiopian's 5-times weekly to Addis and Air Namibia's all-but-Wednesday nonstop to Windhoek; Condor Flugdienst's once-weekly scheduled charters to Arusha, Tanzania's Kilimanjaro International and Agadir in Morocco; Sun Express and Turkish Airlines leisure flights to Adana; Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines flights to Zagreb, and Air Berlin's Friday flight to Zakynthos in Greece.

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: 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.

East African Airways: Domestic Routes, Summer 1974

At the height of its integration, the East African community's co-owned airline considered its routes within and between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as its "domestic" network. Note that Uganda had hardly any service, and that northern Kenya was also very underserved.

East African's operations were concentrated between Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, with a large web of services up and down the coast from Lamu and Mombasa, to Zanzibar and Dar, to Kilwa and Mtwara. From Dar, a sizable domestic operation on mainland Tanzania linked Arusha (Kilimanjaro) and Dodoma to Mwanza on Lake Victoria.

This item has been reposted from the archives of Timetable Images, a wonderful website, which very graciously allows creative commons reuse of their collections. Special thanks to Björn Larsson.

Note that the previous post detailed the other imagery from this 1974 East African Airways brochure.

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.

RwandAir's Growing Network, May 2011

RwandAir continues to grow into a formidable East African carrier, reaching Johannesburg and Dubai, and extending a new line to Libreville this month. Partner connections reach Guangzhou and Amsterdam via Nairobi and London via Entebbe.

RwandAir concentrates on destinations in his own region: Arusha (Timetablist follows from KLM's map conventions and refers to this as Kilimanjaro), Mombasa, Bujumbura, as well as a new route beginning 31 May to Rwanda's second airport at Kamembe. It must be a short hop: Rwanda is slightly smaller than Massachusetts.

Air France/KLM: Winter 2010/11

Air France-KLM's website currently features this extremely thoughtful network map for Sub-tropical Africa, with each city labelled with weekly frequencies, designated by carrier and hub. The otherwise-lucid graphic is a bit confusing, in that it includes only Libya among North African states, and even more confusingly does not include Djibouti or Madagascar--yet Air France is one of the few carriers to serve Antananarivo and Djibouti.