VARIG: South American Network, 1973

Brazil dominates commercial aviation in South America today, but four decades ago Rio de Janeiro was the primary gateway to the continent's southern cone, with Sao Paulo just another way station on the routes to Asuncion and Santiago, without, apparently so much as a link to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, at least not on VARIG. Manaus is a more important gateway, with connections to Bogota and Mexico City via Panama, as well as an Andean-hopper terminating at Iquitos, Peru. Recife and Salvador, and Belem all have flights into Europe, with the latter also linked to Cayenne and Paramaraibo, as well as Miami.

See the previous post for the global view of the VARIG route map of 1973. 

Surinam Airways Network, 2012

A colorful constellation of countries and constituencies shows the recent extent of Surinam Airways's routes. For certain the geography is not to scale, as tiny Curaçao is more massive than giant Brazil, and the compact Netherlands is as large as Florida. Belem is shown nearly as far away as the distant Dutch home country. A similar version shown on Flickr shows neighboring Georgetown, Guyana.

ALM Antillean Airlines Network, Date Unknown.

Via this Dutch Caribbean website comes this vintage route map of ALM Antillean Airlines. The image is undated but does not seem to be contemporary with the end of the little airline's life in 2001, so could be from anywhere between 1985-1995, although the airline had its origins in 1964. 

The "Dutch Anitllean Airlines" logo sits over the mid-Atlantic ocean, the same light blue as the nautical  labels and coordinate lines. The airline's routes spoke outward from the ABC islands, with three separate services to New York, one via St Maarten, and two to Miami via Kingston, Jamaica. Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and San Juan are also served. 

These tiny Dutch constituencies hug the massive South American coast, and likewise ALM's routes seem to skirt around the territory, particularly the southeasterly service which terminates at the Dutch-speaking Paramaraibo, Suriname, via Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Georgetown, Guyana. Other, shorter routes pierce the mainland, linking major Colombian and Venezuelan cities with the airline's home airports, Queen Beatrix International in Aruba and Hato International Airport at Willemstad, Curaçao. 

Surinam Airways Network, 2010-2012

As vintage as this map may seem graphically, the A340 was only acquired by Surinam Airways in November 2009, so the image must be relatively recent. From its base at Paramaribo, the state carrier flies up and down the brow of South America, from Belem in Brazil and up into the West Indies, linking Port of Spain with the Dutch-associated Aruba and Curaçao, but surprisingly not Bonaire. The Caribbean connection finally terminates at Miami, from where, the map indicates, other airlines connect to unspecified American cities.

Barbados, as well as Georgetown, Guyana, and Cayenne, French Guiana, are all shown but seemly not part of the system.

Quite apart from this regional spread is the airline's pride of service, for which the diminutive carrier has employed wide body jumbos and quad-engined Airbuses: the trans-Atlantic span to the seat of the former colonial power: Amsterdam. Weekly flights run nonstop to Schiphol.

BWIA: Caribbean Network, 1967.

A luscious vintage brochure from British West Indian Airways from 1967, when Barbados and Trinidad were in their first years of independence, and Antigua and other islands were still colonies of the crown.

Ruler-sharp red lines span the Windward Islands, connecting each to Barbados, with its direct service to both Georgetown and New York. Several straight lines terminate at Port-of-Spain to stretch across the brow of South America.

A dense web of island-hopping services across the Leewards includes Beef Island off of Tortola, with a number of lines ending at San Juan. Trans-ocean routes from Antigua branch off toward New York JFK and Miami, with a planned pan-Atlantic route to London Heathrow just in planning, "subject to government approval" (it was soon authorized). BWIA enjoyed decades of glory before sadly coming to an end on the last day of 2006, remade as Caribbean Airlines.

KLM: Amsterdam-Paramaraibo

Both KLM and Surinam Airways fly this route today a few times per week-- its hard to believe that enough people need to get between the two points, but such is the state of affairs in post-colonial aviation. Surinam Airways recently switched from a B747-300 to an Airbus A340, leased from Air France.