Congo par Sabena, 1954

A domestic route map of sixty years ago looks much more impressive than the meagre network of Korongo today. Sabena offered services to no less than thirty airports in the vast Belgian colony, with what looks to be busy stations not only at the capital Leopoldville, and the principal regional administrative outposts at Elizabethville and Stanleyville, but throughout the interior of the enormous territory.

There were more than half a dozen routes via various way stations to the metropole in Brussels, including Tripoli, Casablanca, and Rome; all the routes from the capital connected at Kano, which must have been quite an operation in its own right.

In addition, regional African routes spanned the territorial border in all directions: from Leopoldville to Portuguese Luanda and Johannesburg, which also had a link to Elizabethville; from Albertville to Dar Es Salaam, from Libenge to Bangui, in French Equatorial Africa. Not especially the route to Entebbe and Nairobi, especially how Kigali lies within the realm of Belgian Central Africa at this time.

Sabena Network: c.1955

Post-war, pre-jet age Sabena still had an impressive reach, with a dense network in Europe spinning out from the low countries northward to Oslo and Stockholm and east to Prague and Vienna. A single westward push stopped at Shannon before destinations unspecified in North America.

Southward, planes reached the Mediterranean at Nice, and stretched further down to Lisbon where a vague connection to South America is suggested. More articulated is the operation at Rome, with planes splitting off for North Africa,  the first crossing the Sahara to stop at Kano before finally reaching the vast Belgian Congo at Leopoldville. A non-stop from Brussels reached into the upper reaches of the Congo to terminate at Elisabethville and Stanleyville, and a single lined continued all the way down to Johannesburg.

In the east, flights criss-crossed at Athens, only reaching Tel Aviv in the Near East, with another flight to Cairo, which turned down to also reach the eastern cities of the colony.

Ghana Airways Network, October 1966

Four years on the map featured in yesterday's post and Ghana Airways has indeed entered the jet era with its flagship VC-10 shown atop this schedule, whilst running routes from Accra to London, Zürich, Cairo and Beirut. Rome is also shown on the above network, but is unlabeled. The Soviet venture has been dropped, it seems, as Moscow and Prague are no longer shown, and the other north African destinations are likewise absent.

The West African run remains, as does the route to Ouagadougou, although not Bamako.  Kumasi is now shown. Additionally, a British United connection from Monrovia to London via the Canaries is shown in a dashed line.

Khartoum is also gone, but in its place are "proposed routes" stretching across the belt of Africa, from Lagos to Douala, Bangui, Entebbe, and Nairobi, splitting there to terminate at Dar Es Salaam and Mogadishu. Leopoldville is also linked in with this planned expansion. Whether these destinations were ever reached is unclear; a timetable from 1972 shows none of these central African cities.

This item has been reposted from the incredible website Timetable Images, as is from the collection of Bjorn Larsson. The Timetablist would like to thank Timetable Images and Mr. Larsson for generously allowing reposting. 

Ethiopian Airlines Network, c.1960

Appearing almost like the fuzzy felt of a drinks coaster, this map of Ethiopian Airlines mid-century network is a warm and wonderful scene, showing the African continent between a green and red band, like the imperial flag of Ethiopia itself, with the lion of Judah in the southern Atlantic at the lower left of the graphic.

A main North-South route runs between Nairobi and Cairo. A lateral route links Monrovia via Accra and Lagos. Presumably, the two lines angling down the cone of Southern Africa terminate at Johannesburg, but this is not specified, and neither is the significance of the thin lines versus the thick red bolts, which quite curiously cross not at Addis Ababa but at Khartoum. The Monrovia-Conakry-Dakar portion is also a striped hash line, perhaps suggesting that this trunk was not underway but was a future intention. Timbuktu is shown but seemingly not part of the network.

Above the Mediterranean, a rather random assortment of gateways are served: Lisbon, Athens, Frankfurt and Beirut. Aden is linked to Asmara, with promises of more of Asia off to the right of the map. A tiny arrow of the coast of Cap Vert suggests trans-Atlantic connections to the Americas.

Sabena landing Kisangani, 1959.

In 1959, this film was shot from aboard an unidentified aircraft of the Sabena fleet as it landed at Stanleyville, now known as Kisangani. Its also not specified whether this plane was flying from Leopoldville, the capital of the soon-to-be independent Congo, or directly from Brussels, or perhaps elsewhere.

Nigeria Airways: Systemwide Network, April 1966

Pink was chosen to capture the essence of the fleet of the wingéd elephant's global reach in this delicious timetable from April 1966, sporting a roseate VC-10 flagship on its cover, with the stout pachydermian pegasus at lower left.

Regionally, Nigeria Airways plied a leg southeast to Douala and Leopoldville, and a littoral run west from Lagos, skipping only Conakry to reach Dakar, from whence it lept across the Atlantic to New York.

A northern web branches out from the Sahelian capital of Kano flew to Rome--curious how prominent this city was on the Europe-Africa networks--distance was perhaps a factor. Within Europe, unexpectedly the lines land at Rome, Frankfurt and Barcelona. Somewhat odd choices--perhaps distance was still a consideration. And London, naturally, London. A separate premier line from Lagos to London non-stop, which the map underscores. Abuja, of course, has yet to exist. The inset detail of the domestic network is examined in the next post.

The example featured in this post is another gem of the outstanding collection of Björn Larsson, part of the encyclopedic archive at Timetable Images. Thank you to Larsson and the rest of the Timetable Images team for their work and reproduction courtesies.

Pan Am: Miami to Africa, 1941

More history of the Cape Verde coast as global node. This particular envelope from December 6, 1941, celebrates Pan Am's first arrival in Bathurst, Gambia (today Banjul). More broadly, the deep, dynamic illustration shows a flying boat clipper which originates at Miami and reaches the equator via San Juan and Port of Spain, calling at Belem and Natal in Brazil, before crossing the ocean and reaching Bathurst. From there it appears to extend to Lagos and on to Leopoldville. As with the previous post, Dakar did not get the glory.

Pan Am: The African Route, 1960

This is from Pan American's New Horizons World Guide from 1960, showing its single African route: Dakar-Monrovia-Accra-Leopoldville-Johannesburg. Passengers to and from Dakar connect to either Lisbon and Europe or Pan American's home base at Idlewild.

Sabena: Brussels-Niamey-Leopoldville-Elisabethville

A gem of a relic, from 23 November 1935, features a detailed route map showing Sabena extending its reach into deepest Congo. The routing shows Brussels-Marsaille-Oran-Niamey-Fort Lamy (now N'Djamena, Chad)-Libenge (?)-Leopoldville (Kinshasa) and ending in Elisabethville, now Lubumbashi, in DR Congo's copperbelt region. No European carriers reach this city today. Note the gorgeous stamp, with a tiny motorcraft banking over the Palais de Justice in Brussels, an edifice built with the spoils of the Belgian Congo. Libenge, a small outpost on the Ubangi River, has no international service today, and is not listed on any Congo carriers' destination lists, such as Hewa Bora Airways.