Thai Airways Route Table: Routes from Phuket and elsewhere, November 2016

As shown in the previous post from yesterday, the remarkable Route Table in the back of Thai Airways's in-flight magazine indexes every route of the airline. After listing all the routes out of Bangkok, the remainder is given over to flights from other airports.

While many are leisure routes direct from Phuket, namely Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and St ockholm, there is a direct trans-border hop from northern Chiang Mai to Kunming in neighboring Yunnan province, and a somewhat anachronistic link between Karachi and Muscat, recalling pan-Asian journeys of an earlier era.Likewise, the Taipei—Seoul route shows the vestiges of the decades when a handful of flag carriers operated across East Asia.

Equally fascinating are a pair of what might be categorized as religious routes: Gaya—Varanasi—Bangkok (these two cities premiering here on The Timetablist). These services clearly reflect the importance of Hindu pilgrimages to Thai's customer base. The closest examples to these types of operations would be Aer Lingus's pilgrimage operations of an earlier era, which are now almost entirely covered by charter operations. 

Thai Airways Route Table, G-M, November 2016

Continuing from the previous post, the full route schedule of Thai Airways is, somewhat remarkably, tables the entire route network of the airline in the back of its in-flight magazine. Here are tagged destinations G through M from Bangkok. Almost all are in Asia, except for London, Melbourne and Moscow. 

Thai Airways: The eastward route network, 2013

The right-hand side of the route network of Thai Airways International, another page from a 2013 edition of the flag carrier's Sawasdee inflight magazine, continuing from the previous post. Most connections from Bangkok, are unsurprising, with a number of cross-connections at Hong Kong and Seoul, although perhaps more interesting are the routes to Kunming and Chengdu in interior China. The inset shows domestic routes and the now-scrapped service to Los Angeles.

Thai Airways International Routes, 2013 (cont.)

A continuation of the previous post, showing Thai Airways international destinations across Asia, Europe, and Australia, from Kathmandu to Kunming and Manila to Melbourne to Milan.

Finnair: The Chinese Routes, 2012

A silvery, polarized projection showing the trans-Asian routes of Finnair from Helsinki to China. Later this year, in May 2012, Finnair will add its fourth destination to its Chinese roster, landing at Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing, shown above in hot pink.

Its not particularly clear as to why the other cities that Finnair does not connected to Vantaa are shown, as its especially unlikely that plans are in the works for Finnish connections to Kunming or Tibet.

Singapore Airlines and Silk Air: Discover the Splendors of China, 2011

A print and online advertisement for Singapore Airlines flight deals to China via this website. SIA serves a number of mainland cities, and its little sister, SilkAir, serves even more. In the case of Shenzhen, Singapore Airlines actually withdrew its mainline services after a foray in 2005-06, and instead SilkAir now serves the city. The advertisements list both airlines but don't specify which airline's metal lands at which city.

Kunming Airlines Routes, 2011-12

Two web-ads promoting the destinations of Kunming Airlines, a small, young Chinese airline, from its un-Romanized website. One advertisement uses the old roadside directional-signs-on pole image to note the cities, while the other seems to have devolved from an archaic compass-and-parchment map idea to then be overlaid with warped jpgs of the cities in question.

Both advertisements boast the same three flight schedules: Kunming-Changzhou (常州) -Dalian; a second, zigzagging route from Kunming to Chongqing and then Taizhou (台州) in Zhejiang Province; and thirdly a north-south Kunming-Changsha-Shijiazhuang line.

The airline's Wikipedia article lists a different roster of routes, but that is probably out of date, having been last updated in 2009. Commercial aviation in China is growing rapidly, and little Kunming airlines has only been in existence since 2005. Kunming Airlines's home page offers fares on flights to Xiamen, Guiyang, Harbin, Shenzhen, Qingdao, and Nanning as well as other cities across central China.

Shandong Airlines: The Southern Destinations, 2012

Although named for, and based in, a northern province, Shandong Airlines serves most of the major cities of China's south and southwest, from the Cantonese capitals of Guangzhou and Shenzhen to the several massive cities in the Shanghai region, to Sanya on Hainan Island, Sichuan, and even Lhasa in Tibet. A few of the destination dots here are unlabeled. Taipei in Taiwan is also served.

Shenzhen Air: The Southern System, 2012

Continuing from the previous post, showing the southern section of Shenzhen Airlines' large network. Beyond its home province of Guangdong, and the many cities served across the heartland of China, Shenzhen Air serves eight southeast Asian cities, which are shown here in a sort of lazy, partial outline trace of the landmasses upon which they lie: only three of Indonesia's many islands are shown for the purposes of Jakarta, Bali, and Singapore; Peninsular Malaysia forms another losenge-shaped island above Sumatra, disconnected from a truncated Thailand, which itself lies awkwardly next to Vietnam, with Cambodia and Laos not bothered with. Of the Philippine archipelago, only the main island of Luzon is shown for Manila. Taiwan is colored in the same green as the mainland PRC.

Chengdu Airlines Network, Winter 2011-12

Today, China has such a great many airlines, many named solely after a certain large city. Although the massive province of Sichuan has its own Sichuan Airlines, its capital, colossal Chengdu, also has its own namesake carrier, 成都航空有限公司.

Chengdu Airlines most-recent route map from its website is shown above. The landmass of the People's Republic is made of cloud, a lovely detail, over which is laid the sizable network of the regional carrier, which seems to be expanding rapidly, as its Wikipedia article, updated only a year ago, shows only 15 destinations.

For the English-speaker, the network is still a bit mysterious, as only the Chinese characters are used to label the destinations. Thanks to Google Translate, we can establish many of the principal airports that Chengdu Airlines flies to:

北京 Beijing 宁波 Ningbo

长沙 Changsha 上海 Shanghai

成都 Chengdu 阳 Shenyang

重庆 Chongqing 深圳 Shenzhen

大连 Dalian 石家庄 Shijiazhuang

福州 Fuzhou 乌鲁木齐 Urumqi

广州 Guangzhou 武汉 Wuhan

杭州 Hangzhou 西安 Xi'an

昆明 Kunming 厦门 Xiamen

南京 Nanjing

The great number of routes out of Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport itself (成都) are clear, and the hub is marked by the tailfin emblazoned with the company's logo. Further east, the airline appears to have a focal point at Changsha (长沙) and a serves many coastal cities in the massive Shanghai megalopolis: beyond Hongqiao airport, Nanjing (南京), Ningbo (宁波) and Hangzhou (杭州) are also shown here.

Farther north, the great Capital Airport at Beijing (北京) is represented by a diminutive star, with only a single route connecting it. As far as Chengdu Airlines own network is concerned, the northern focus city is apparently Shijiazhuang (石家庄 ), in Hebei province, southwest of Beijing.

The huge factory of the country, in Guangdong province, is underserved, with only a few routes connecting Guangzhou (广州) and Shenzhen (深圳). In the northwest, a pair of long routes land at the capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi (乌鲁木齐).

Hainan Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines: Some of the Routes Operated. Post #2: HKA Destinations

A second post of the same item, labeling the destinations of Hong Kong Airlines across the mainland PRC, Southeast Asia from Hanoi to Denpasar, Bali; Japan, and Moscow.

Korean Air: Chinese Destinations, 2011

China has been a major growth market for global aviation, and Korean Air has successfully marketed its new hub at Incheon as a convenient connection to the mainland, with hundreds of flights each week to more than a dozen destinations. See other posts from today for domestic and Japanese networks.