ALIA: The Royal Jordanian Airline Network, 1984-85

A loose cartography to show the route system of Alia: The Royal Jordanian Airline in the mid-1980s, when the carrier had ambitiously reached four continents, but had not yet been rebranded as simply "Royal Jordanian' —the Alia was the name of the King Hussein's daughter, the Princess, a very curious nomenclature for a commercial carrier. 

The map spreads out the many European destinations served from Amman, as many as 15 apparently, including the somewhat unusual cities such as Belgrade and Bucharest; although these lesser cities likely saw the B707 and B727, at the time, the L-1011 was becoming the workhorse of the fleet. 

Most notably, Alia carried the crown of Hashemite throne to distant Chicago and distant Los Angeles, via Vienna, as well as New York via Amsterdam, possibly utilizing the airline's B747-200s, of which there were as many as three during the 1980s. Today the successor carrier still serves O'Hare, non-stop with debasing graphite-grey B787 Dreamliners.

Alia offered a comprehensive schedule across its immediate region, from Tripoli and Tunis in North Africa to Beirut and Damascus in the Levant to the many capitals of the Gulf—note that the map once again takes its liberties, showing the Doha-Muscat link leaping to the left, making room for the Dubai-Karachi connection below. The two east Asian services, nonstops to Bangkok and Singapore, are set apart. Looking closely, the airline's sole domestic destination, Aqaba, is shown directly below the hub.

Gulf Air Network, c.1975

 

The wingspan of the Golden Falcon of Gulf Air reached broadly across the Eurasian continent in the mid-1970s, emblazoned on the tail of the consortium airline's new quad-jet VC-10s as they roared across the skies from Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha to London Heathrow in the west and from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Muscat to Bombay and Karachi in the east. 

The duality of this network map is not fully explained, as an abundance of other regional cities, from Salalah to Shiraz, Beirut to Bandar Abbas to Baghdad, Amsterdam to Athens to Amman, are shown with dotted lines and smaller outline labels. These are presumably secondary routes, served by the airline's F-27 Friendships and BAC 1-11s, first purchased in 1970, although presumably the larger planes flew the routes from the home bases to Paris and onward to Amsterdam—such non-stop service was made possible by the imminent arrival of the airline's new flagship L-1011 aircraft. It's not specified what airport is referenced by "Cyprus" but presumably this is Larnaca. 

To the right, the map is repeated in Arabic, although the secondary lines are not dotted, making the Middle East—Paris—Amsterdam route clearer, and curiously Cyprus is excluded altogether from that corresponding map.

Oman Air Route Network, December 2015: The Eastward Routes

Continuing from the previous post, Oman Air has followed the general strategy of all other Gulf carriers, by provided an extensive medium and long-haul network across South and Southeast Asia, best understood as serving the constant flow of labor migrants from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan into its home market and across the Gulf region.

Oman Air has yet to take on the business hubs of East Asia, although since this map was published in December 2015, the carrier has launched flights to Guangzhou, just last month.

Oman Air Route Network, December 2015: The Westward Routes

A completely thorough review of contemporary Gulf carriers must include the second-tier but rapidly growing Oman Air, which has swiftly moved from a minor regional carrier into a long-haul competitor. This spherical route map, from the airline's Wings of Oman in-flight magazine published at the end of 2015, shows six non-stops to Europe, operated variously by A330 and B787 aircraft, as well as the usual raft of regional destinations. Codeshares to Amsterdam, Istanbul, and Addis Ababa are marked in orange. 

What might be most notable about the airline's westward network are the pair of Sub-Saharan routes, both to Tanzania. An interesting fact: the capital of the Oman Empire was moved in the 19th century  Zanzibar, and there is enough trade and cultural links between ancient Muscat and the Swahili coast to maintain flights to the semi-autonomous island as well as the East African country's capital, Dar Es Salaam. Since this issue was published, Oman Air has announced new non-stops to Nairobi and Manchester. 

Qatar Airways Route Network, November 2016: The GCC and South America

Like Etihad and Emirates, the ultra-long haul routes to South America are Qatar Airways rarest expeditions. A single Doha—São Paulo—Buenos Aires route makes Hamad International Airport a six-continent hub. 

Given the dearth of Latin American routes, this corner of the route map features an eye-glass inset of the GCC, showing Qatar's numerous routes to the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, which connect on Qatar to an impressive eight destinations, including Hofuf, which premieres on the Timetablist here for the first time. 

Gulf Air Network, October 2016: The Westward Routes

Continuing from the previous post, Gulf Air still has a strong presence in its home region, particularly into Saudi Arabia, with service to six cities including smaller airports like Taif and Gassim. There are also flights to three cities in Iran. Gulf Air was once a bigger actor in Eastern Africa having withdrawn from Nairobi only as recently as 2012, but today only reaches Khartoum and Addis Ababa. 

Note that the map on the last post boasted of 42 cities in 25 countries, whereas this counts 44 cities in 24 countries. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: the Near Asian & East African Routes

Picking up from where we left off before the end of the year, when we had exhaustively examined the redesign of Emirates Airline's route map, here is the example of its counterpart, barely 130 kms down the national highway in Abu Dhabi: Etihad, officially the national airline of the UAE. 

The smaller but, if anything, more luxurious rival connects its home base to six continents, shown here and in the next several posts of this week with an examination of its rather pedestrian route map from the September edition of its in-flight publication. 

Starting in this post, the routes radiate out from Abu Dhabi, as does every single flight of the airline. The airlines geographic extent mirrors, in lesser form, the six-continent coverage of its rival. All the usual regional capitals are served, but more often with narrow-body A320s than with the widebodies of Emirates. Equally well-covered are the south Asian gateways, economically important but also bridges to the vast majority of the UAE's foreign labor force.

We will look further east in Asia in the next few posts, but for now it is interesting to note the strong appearances in Kazakhstan. While a number of airlines fly to Almaty, the former capital and large commercial center, it is somewhat rarer to also service Astana, the new-built capital on the steppes. 

With far fewer routes to Africa than Emirates, Etihad has but one interesting distinction, if not exactly an advantage: its non-stop flight to Mahe is in cooperation with Air Seychelles, in which Eithad acquired a 40% stake.

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The Middle East

For a long-haul, all-widebody airline, Emirates has not retreated from the short-haul demands of its home region—recognizing the feeder traffic into its immense global network (even as the immediate region is inundated with competition from other state carriers, as well as its friendly home town rivalry with low-cost FlyDubai). 

Here too, Emirates has utilized its superjumbo A380s on routes to Jeddah (three times per day), Kuwait, and, most recently, to Doha—the world's shortest A380 route. While seemingly untenable, the short operations optimize the scheduling efficiency of the ultra-long-haul behemoth.

Even where two decks of seats would be overkill, Emirates employs its B777s and A330s from Beirut to Muscat, often offering far more tickets on each flight than the competition's B737s and A320s. 

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: The International Routes, 2013

Like Garuda (not to mention Malaysia Airlines), Thai Airways International is still a going concern but is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. This table, from the back of Thai Airway's inflight magazine from 2013, illustrates the point. Information listing the airline's international services from Bangkok from R—Z, with Rome no longer a destination. A handful of secondary leisure routes are shown thereafter, such as Copenhagen—Phuket and Stockholm—Phuket, and intra-Asian flights such as Hong Kong—Seoul and Hong Kong—Taipei, as well as the old Seoul—Los Angeles route which was removed from the schedule in 2015 after 35 years of service.

Also interesting here are the number of routes to tertiary Indian cities, specifically Varanasi and Gaya, presumably as pilgrimage sites. 

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. 

Muscat: Flight Departures, 4 December 2015

Relating to today's previous post, here is a two-hour window stretching from late afternoon into early evening at Muscat International Airport last December. While Oman Air has the majority of operations, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Kuwait Airways and Air Arabia are also on the board. Destinations are limited to the immediate Gulf states, with the exception of Islamabad, Pakistan. 

Muscat Airport: Arrivals on 12 December, 2015

An unfortunately blurry image of the mid-day arrivals screens for Muscat International Airport on 12 December 2015. Dominated, naturally, by Oman Air, with multiple incoming flights from nearby Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, and Makkah, and a spread of subcontinental landings from Delhi, Chennai, Karachi, Colombo, Bangalore, Jaipur, Lahore, Calicut and Male. Longer range operations such as Bangkok and the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur operation arrive at about 1PM, with one of the few domestic flights, from Salalah, come in twice that afternoon. Air Arabia to Sharjah and flydubai put low-cost, short-haul operations on the board. 

Dubai: Departures from Terminal 1, January 2015

One of two posts today showing the Departures Boards at Dubai International from back in late January 2015. Dubai's remarkable development as a global city is inextricable to the incredible growth of its airport. While the unprecedented burgeoning of hometown Emirates airline has been foundational in this expansion, and in 2014 Dubai overtook London Heathrow to become the most important airport in the world by international passengers. However this is not solely due to Emirates, but also to a myriad of intercontinental and regional air carriers, from its global rivals to exotic and rare birds from Dubai's vast aviation hinterland of South and Central Asia and Africa. 

Here, in a window of less than three hours of activity at Terminal 1, Dubai International demonstrates its role as a global hub. Arch-rivals Virgin and British Airways both depart for Heathrow at the exact same time. Regional kin such as Saudia, Gulf Air, Oman Air and Qatar Airways are off to their hubs. Two Iranian carriers depart for Persian cities: State carrier Iranair to coastal Bandar Abbas, and an A340 sports the green swan of Mahan Air on its way to the capital. At 11:25, Air Astana leaves for Almaty. Further east, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo are off to seven Indian cities, and PIA departs for Peshawar at 11:40. 

The African offerings are perhaps even more interesting: TAAG to Luanda, Arik to Abuja, Tunisair to Tunis. Or more specifically, they were more interesting: remarkably, all three operations were scrapped in later 2015, in the face of relentless competition from Emirates and economic struggles across that continent.  

Kuwait International Airport: Arrivals Board, 14 August 2015 (cont).

Continuing from the previous post, the arrivals board at Kuwait Airport, showing the finally-arrived British Airways flight, shown at the moment as an Iberia codeshare. Hometown Kuwait Airways has more flights in than out, with arrivals from Islamabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Colombo, Dhaka, and Istanbul. Rival Jazeera Airways arrives from two central Egyptian cities: Sohag and Luxor. Emirates shows up again, as it always does. Oman Air comes in from Muscat; Qatar Airways from Doha.

Just as with the Departures screen, an obscure Iranian air carrier makes for fun planespotting at KIA: The blue swanned-tail of Iran Aseman Airlines arrives from tiny Lamerd in coastal Fars Province at 7:40. A status is not given. 

Evening departures from Bahrain International Airport

Gulf Air continues to dominate the evening flight board out of Bahrain, with flights to Jeddah, Dubai (both DXB and DWC), Kuwait, Riyadh and Muscat. In addition, nearly all the major flag carriers of the Middle East are present: Emirates to Dubai, Etihad to Abu Dhabi, Qatar to Doha, Kuwait Airways to Kuwait, Iran Air to Mashhad, and Saudia to Riyadh, and Royal Jordanian to Amman. Low-cost Air Arabia flies to Sharjah. at 6:40, as does Air India Express to Kochi—the only flight outside the Gulf. 

Afternoon departures from Bahrain International, January 2015

The typical weekend afternoon schedule out of Bahrain's only commercial airport is dominated by flights operated by the state carrier, Gulf Air, and flights to the Middle East. Bahrain's flag carrier departs for Karachi, Delhi, Muscat, Riyadh, Dubai (twice), Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and Dammam. Mahan Air flies to Mashhad, Saudia to Jeddah, and Egyptair to Cairo. Emirati low-cost carriers flydubai and Rotana jet fly to their respective hubs as well.

The only flight on the top of the board that doesn't fall into either or both categories is Cathay Pacific's non-stop to Hong Kong.

Thai Airways: the Western Long-Haul routes, 2013

The result of the explosive growth of tourism to Thailand in the last three decades has resulted in Thai Airways serving an unusually large array of European airports for such a distant destination. This luscious, orchid-colored route map, from Thai Airway's in-flight magazine from last year, shows more than half a dozen non-stops to Europe, from common megahubs like London, Paris, and Frankfurt, to secondary cities like Madrid, Zürich, Munich, Moscow and Milan, to cold-weather gateways like Brussels, Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm which have fewer intercontinental services.

Outside of Europe, Thai is one of a handful of Asian carriers to fly to Johannesburg, and on the extreme right-hand side of the page the flights to Dubai and Muscat (the latter via Karachi) are shown.

Addis Ababa Bole Airport Departures 23 April 2013, #2

The second screen of Addis Ababa's Bole Airport evening departures show many more options on Ethiopian Airlines near and far, from Muscat to Washington, Tel-Aviv to Stockholm, reflecting the breadth of the ancient country's modern connections both in terms of trade and diaspora communities.

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.