Showing posts with label Lufthansa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lufthansa. Show all posts

Monday, October 31, 2016

Lufthansa: The Worldwide Network, Part 2: The Afro-South American System.


Continuing from the previous post, it is, as always, interesting to note the enormous number of African destinations that were once served by European airlines. Lufthansa flew to a great many more African cities than today, shown here in three trunk lines extending across the Mediterranean. In the east, a route to Khartoum turns at Addis Ababa to make its way to Entebbe, then on to Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, where the line splits to terminate at Mauritius or further south to Johannesburg, which meets the central trunk from Tunis—Tripoli to Accra, Lagos and then Kinshasa, shown cluster together in the Bight of Benin. Many of these sub-Saharan services have been presented on the Timetablist before.

In the Western Mediterranean, a third line passes again through North Africa and continues straight across Dakar towards South America. turning only slightly at Rio de Janeiro, plunging further to Sao Paulo—Montevideo—Buenos Aires and turning 90 degrees to finish to Santiago, which is also linked along the Andes to northernly American cities.

As it has so many times in the past, Timetablist would like to express its appreciation for Flickr user caribb (Doug from Montreal)'s incredible collection, and to say thanks  for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Lufthansa: The Worldwide Network, mid-1973

 

A recent post referenced the famous Lufthansa Spinnernetz Streckenatlas, which brought to our editorial attention that we had overlooked posting one of the more legendary graphics of Timetable History. Here is the 1973 version, courtesy of the perennially superb collection of Flickr user Caribb. 

As its base, the map is a unique, polar-focused pseudo-Azimuthal projection, showing all continents but with the Pacific meridians hooking back away from the globe's infinite edge into the north pole. The network itself is given an even more liberal representation, made up of just ten enormous trunk routes, intersecting at the center of the map over Germany (but, interestingly, not specifically mentioning any Deutsche Stadt).

Foreign and overseas destinations are listed in neat columns as these thick ribbons pass near to them: Singapore and Jakarta are skirted, not passed over, on the way to Sydney (Lufthansa left Australia decades ago). A single line from Philadelphia to Quito hits Nassau, Kingston and Bogota, meeting up with some sort of Europe–Caracas route before reaching the Andean way stations. A small offshoot links to Mexican destinations, including Monterrey and Merida, which are also of course no longer served.  The transpolar route from Germany to Anchorage makes right angle with Germany—Bangkok; a semi-circle of Hong KongOsaka(Itami)—Tokyo(Haneda)—Anchorage makes the grapefruit quarter.

Other images from caribb's Flickr stream show a fleet of DC-8s and 707s in heavy rotation, assisted by the brand-new B747s in the fleet. The next post will detail the African and South American Cone destinations.

As it has so many times in the past, Timetablist would like to express its appreciation for Flickr user caribb (Doug from Montreal)'s incredible collection, and to say thanks  for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Lufthansa: Lost Destinations from the Summer of 2012


For space considerations, the other (non-Russian) worldly destinations that have lost their Lufthansa patronage since 2012 have been cordoned into this separate post. There are three continents hosting less Lufthansa than before, but the only mainline European city that is out is tiny Trondheim, Norway (a first for the Timetablist here), which was curiously served once a week by an aging B737-400.

Asia has been particularly affected: the long-haul connections to Jakarta (via Singapore) and Kuala Lumpur  (via Bangkok) could consistently work. More recently, Lufthansa has lost out to the Gulf three, and curtailed its dedicated flight to Abu Dhabi, and truncated the Muscat extension of its Frankfurt-Riyadh flights (although LX243, the Zürich-Dubai-Muscat connection on SWISS listed here, still operates today).

More dire but less surprising are the loss of further African services: no news that Tripoli has been abandoned, and Pointe-Noire's petrol-club PrivatAir B737-800 service via Libreville had its run, but less happy the abandonment of once-promising Asmara and long-served Khartoum, surely and sadly uneconomic nowadays.  Also, lamentably, Caracas has likewise sunk into a less-viable abyss and receives fewer and fewer international airlines.  Lufthansa closed down its Venezuelan outpost in May this year. 



Saturday, September 17, 2016

Lufthansa: The Lost Russian Service, Summer 2012




Related to the post from last week about the withdrawal of Aeroflot's flights from Berlin-Tegel, the archival stacks of the Timetablist revealed a near-vintage item of relevance: a Lufthansa Systemwide Timetable from June-October 2012, graphically executed in the neat, straightforward Teutonic presentation that is classic Lufthansa—but issued only as a PDF instead of a bulkier booklet, a customer (and aviation nerd) service that, somewhat amazingly, Lufthansa still provides on its website

Although just four years old, the reference in the Timetablist library features over a dozen destinations that have since been terminated. In particular, Lufthansa has retreated remarkably from Russia, a zone it made great efforts to penetrate in the 1990s and 2000s. Relatedly included: LH's lost service from Munich to Donetsk, the metropolitan area of 2 million in eastern Ukraine which is now self-proclaimed as independent, which caused Lufthansa to withdraw in 2014. A year earlier, the thrice-weekly Frankfurt-Perm-Kazan operation was closed and then separately Yekaterinburg was dropped in December due to lack of profitability. 


While several major non-Russian carriers still serve many of these airports—notably Turkish Airlines, which overtook Lufthansa to become now the largest foreign carrier in Russia—the disappearance of Lufthansa from secondary centers in Russia is an undeniable loss of prestige for these cities, and an evident effect of the decline of Russia's political and commercial ties with Germany. 2012 might not be that long ago, but much has changed. 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Air Berlin: Berlin to Chicago and New York, July 2015


A last item in the series of box-light billboard adverts at Berlin Tegel last summer: one of the undoubted pride of the German capital's operations, the hometown Air Berlin's widebody non-stops to Chicago and New York JFK. As mentioned earlier this week, Berlin has somewhat curious commercial aviation arrangements. These reflect in turn, the situation in the largely decentralized Germany as a whole, for that matter, where the dominant flag-carrier Lufthansa somewhat underserves large metro areas like Hamburg and the Rhein-Ruhr by concentrating a classic hub-and-spoke system in all-powerful Frankfurt and the highly-important but rather out-of-the-way Munich. This leaves the country's largest urban center and unquestionably one of the most important capitals of Europe with only a handful of long-haul options. 

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Late Evening Departures from Doha Hamad International Airport, January 2015


Staying with Qatar Airways and Doha, from yesterday's post, here is a screenshot of the departures board at Hamad International Airport from January 2015, showing the remarkable reach of the number 2 of the "Gulf 3" as part of the State of Qatar's wide-ranging campaign to raise the global profile and relevance of the tiny, wealthy emirate.

But it also demonstrates the degree to which that profile is still limited to its own initiatives: while Qatar Airway's worldwide network makes Hamad International one of the few airports in the world to link to all six inhabited continents nonstop, this is largely limited to the state carrier's operations itself—few other airlines serve Doha. 

While DOH's flight boards normally subsist of a predominance of QR flights, here the flag carrier only connects merely to Dubai, Kuwait, and Bahrain—much less grand than the ultra-long haul, hexacontinental operations such as those noted earlier this week. 

In this particular time block there are two European long-haul operations: Lufthansa connecting at Bahrain to Frankfurt, and British Airways to London, while Gulf Air also connects to Bahrain, its base. Elsewhere in the Gulf, Emirates, and flydubai do their bit as part of the "Doha-Dubai shuttle," nowadays the busiest intra-Gulf route. Looking further east, there are several Jet Airways flights to Cochin, Delhi and Mumbai, whereas SriLankan connects to Colombo at 10:40pm.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Munich Departures, August 2013


The last departures before midnight on a Sunday evening at Munich's airport in August of this year reveals many of Bavaria's more exotic visitors: South African Airways to Johannesburg, and Turkish to Izmir, and Emirates to Dubai, with long-haul services by Lufthansa from its second-biggest hub to Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Of shorter duration is an Easyjet hop to London Gatwick. Before midnight there are two flights to Moscow, one on S7 to Domodedovo and one on Aeroflot to Sheremetyevo. There is an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. There are also charter services to Palma de Mallorca and Antalya.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Arrivals at Dresden International, August 2013


The television arrivals screen at Dresden airport in Germany on a Friday in August of 2013, showing many internal flights on Lufthansa from Munich and Frankfurt, and on Air Berlin from Düsseldorf.  Easyjet has a single service on the board from BaselAir Berlin also flies in from Antalya, Turkey, and Germanwings arrives from Cologne with an earlier service in from Corfu, which is not the sole Greek Isle connection shown on the board, as there is a later charter arrival on Pegasus from Kos.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Boston Logan International Departures, April 2008


The evening departure board for the International Terminal E at Boston Logan Airport on Sunday, April 27, 2008. Between 6:20 an 9:40pm, there were ten flights to eight European cities on on eight airlines. Although only mid-Spring, Northwest Airlines was offering its two departures to Amsterdam Schiphol, as it still does on a summer schedule (although today it is Delta out of Terminal A). Northwest operated all its flights out of Terminal E, which is why Indianapolis and Detroit are shown during the 19:00 hour.

London is by far Logan's busiest overseas connection: here are two flights on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to Heathrow, while over at Terminal B an American Airlines flight was also preparing to follow. Aer Lingus's departures to both sides of the Emerald Isle leave one after the other, the second stopping in Shannon. Other European flag carriers include Lufthansa to Munich, Iberia to Madrid, SWISS to Zurich, and Icelandair to Reykjavík, which lands at Keflavík International in a few short hours.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Frankfurt Airport Departures, August 2012


Just twenty minutes of mid-weekday activity at Frankfurt Airport in late August 2012, showing departures (mostly of Lufthansa, naturally) as near as Salzburg and as far away as Kuala Lumpur on Malaysia Airlines and Charlotte on USAirways.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Lufthansa Cargo: Dhahran-Dubai-Hong Kong, 1991


Normally, Timetablist limits its interest to commercial passenger schedules of past and present, but as yesterday's post brought up the topic of Lufthansa's history of hopping within the Gulf region, here is a envelope marking the commencement of a global freight route wrapping around the belt of Asia, from Frankfurt to Hong Kong via Dhahran and Dubai.

The B747F is shown twice, however both illustrations are rather distorted, particularly on the elongated profile on the cartoonish cancellation stamp. The other aligns the ailerons with the outline of an unspecified mosque-and-minarets profile. Note also the petroleum production emblazoned on the Saudi Arabian postage stamp.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Lufthansa: Karachi-Kuwait, December 1990


Because regional routes within foreign continents is increasingly rare in the 21st century, it is remarkable how extensive such globe-spanning was even in recent decades for the handful of world-dominating flag carriers, Lufthansa chief among them. Here, an A310 which surely calls Frankfurt home, is headed to Kuwait from Karachi.  Its very difficult to discern the date of this envelope, as the ink missed the paper just where the year is printed. LH633 would at other times be routed Karachi-Riyadh and Riyadh-Muscat, and Dubai-Dhahran, in many instances with a DC-10. Presently, however, LH633 is not an active flight number, and currently the German airline is not seen at Karachi.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Abidjan-Accra, 1978


An envelope from mid-1978, the first flight for a Lufthansa routing from Frankfurt to Accra via Abidjan, on a Boeing 707. Its unclear what the imprint in red is supposed to be, other than an African woman with a head-wrap. The envelope is addressed to the Lufthansa office in Accra and stamped in Cote D'Ivoire. Later, the German carrier would reach Accra via Lagos, a practice that continued through 2009. Lufthansa hasn't served Port Bouet Airport in many years, and recently discontinued service on Condor-adorned jets to Accra itself, in favor of its sister carrier, Privatair.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Brussels Airport Departure Board #4

The late afternoon at Brussels Airport is dominated by flights by mainline carriers, many of them run by Brussels Airlines. These are interspersed with two more distant, exotic destinations: Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca and Turkish Airlines to Istanbul.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Brussels Airport Departure Board # 2


About an hour and half of mid-day flights fill in the bottom of the Zavantem Airport departure boarding. Everything is on schedule except its already known that Ukraine International's flight to Kiev is already running late.

Two of Brussels's handful of East Asian visitors leave in this time period: Hainan Airlines to Beijing and Thai Airways to Bangkok. At quarter past noon, a Tunisair flight to Djerba and Monastir leaves just before Aeroflot's flight to Moscow Sheremetyevo. There is also a 1:30 flight on Syrianair to Damascus via Beirut.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Brussels Airport Arrival Channel, January 2012: Screen # 2


The second screen flashing on the arrivals channel at the Brussels Airport Sheraton also features an overnight Brussels Airlines flight from equatorial Africa, this one the Kinshasa-Yaoundé SN354, but is otherwise a bit more diversified: shown here is Ethiopian Airlines own service into Brussels from Addis Ababa, via Milan Malpensa, and at the close of the hour the two blades of Jet Airways's scissor hub begin to close in on Zavantem, as nonstops from Toronto, Newark, New York-JFK, and Delhi arrive within a span of five minutes. In between, a handful of classic flag-carrier short-hauls from nearby EU hubs touchdown: KLM from Amsterdam and Lufthansa from Frankfurt.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Lagos-Accra, May 1976

This first-flight cover from Lufthansa German Airlines emphasizes the aircraft nearly as much as the route: both the envelope's blood-red graphics and the cancellation stamp feature the unmistakeable profile of the DC-10, which made its way from Frankfurt to Accra and onward to Lagos in May 1976. Interestingly, it was only in 2009, when service was normally with an Airbus A340, that Accra and Lagos were delinked in Lufthansa's system, each getting a dedicated daily non-stop flight.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Douala-Kinshasa, 1985

A large photographic representation of a mask dominates this first-flight cover from Lufthansa, stamped in the Republic of Cameroon (note the charging Rhinoceros on the cancellation) and addressed to the airport in Kinshasa, the second, trans-equatorial leg of LH556's A300 service from Frankfurt to Zaïre via Douala.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Lufthansa: Accra-Kinshasa, 1983.

An Intra-African Erstflug for Lufthansa German Airlines, a Boeing 707 flight from Kinshasa, Zaïre to Accra Ghana. Presumably the quad jet roared onward to Frankfurt, but no mention of that here. A red, square cancellation stamp shows the aircraft at the angle of final approach.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

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.