ECAir Schedule, October 2016

Someone knew their way around MS Word enough to author this straight-forward table of services for ECAir, the trade-name of Equatorial Congo Airlines, flag-carrier of the Republic of Congo, featured here on The Timetablist for the first time. For the month of October 2016 only, the schedule is divided into three tables: Domestic (detailing only the twice-daily flights between the capital Brazzaville and the Atlantic oil-hub at coastal Pointe-Noire) on a sizable B757.

In addition, an interesting sub-index of riverine runs across the mighty Congo to the nearby capital of the DRC, Kinshasa Central Station, almost recalling the manner in which Lufthansa or other European carriers link rail services to their timetables. The equipment type designates "HOV" which can only stand for Hovercraft or High Occupancy Vehicle, or both. No such ferry services specifically featuring a hovercraft are easily located. 

The next block, regional services, lists once-weekly flights to and from Douala, Cotonou, Libreville, and Bamako-Dakar. More obvious links to Abidjan and Lomé are not part of the operation. Somewhat fascinating to see a large B767 on these routes. 

Undoubtedly the pride of the company were the afternoon long-haul operations, alternating every other day between Paris-CDG and Dubai International with the B767 wet-leased from the Swiss charter company, PrivatAir, as the airline remained forever banned from bringing its own equipment into the airspace of the European Union.

Sadly however, in the very time frame that this schedule contemplates, the airline was shut-down in the same month, sadly never to be revived. 

CEIBA Intercontinental Routes, November 2015

Little Equatorial Guinea has not one but two airlines; the privately-formed Cronos, detailed in the previous posts, and the state carrier, CEIBA Intercontinental, which mimics its sister with a series of regional routes, including Accra, Lomé, and Douala, but interestingly, according to this map, avoiding Yaoundé and Lagos. The airline also extends further, reaching Abidjan and Dakar, as well as Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo. 

 Undoubtedly the pride of CEIBA's services is the long-haul to Madrid. The sole long-haul operation flying the Equatoguinean flag reaches Barajas in the erstwhile colonial metropole thrice-weekly. As a carrier still banned by the European Union, with a B777 operated by Portuguese aviation company White Airways, complete with a 3-class configuration.

The other proximas routes shown here: Casablanca, Johannesburg, Las Palmas, Lisbon and Luanda, have never come to pass. 

Air Côte d'Ivoire: The Regional Network, March 2017

The other intersection of Air Afrique's complex politico-economic network was its base at Abidjan. After the demise of the pan-regional carrier in 2002, Côte d'Ivoire launched a succession of national carriers, first Air Ivoire and today Air Côte d'Ivoire.

Today—particularly with the sad degradation of Arik Air and other Nigerian attempts at a regional, trans-national carrier—this airline is perhaps the most important airline network in the region, stretching not only from Dakar to Douala, but also offering the rare handful of inter-languaphone connections across the English- and French-speaking postcolonial checkerboard of West Africa, with nonstops from Abidjan to Freetown, Monrovia, Accra, Lagos and even Abuja.

Like Air Afrique before it, and in a similar fashion to its only rival to regional dominance, the Ethiopian Airline's backed venture Asky, the Ivorian airline extends well into central Africa, with service to French-speaking Libreville and Brazzaville as well as its coastal oil city, Pointe-Noire, and even as far south as Kinshasa.

However, unlike Air Afrique and its immediate predecessor, Air Ivoire, Air Côte d'Ivoire has yet to launch any service outside of Africa, such as flights to Europe. Despite the volume of traffic between Abidjan and France, it is all taken up by Air France and other metropole companies. Air France/KLM Group's 20% stake in Air CIV likely explains the lack of intercontinental operations. 

Air Afrique Route Network, 1987 (2 of 2)

Following on from the previous post, this large-format map allows for a close examination of the regional network of Air Afrique. This network was both extensive and limited, paradoxically, in that it connected the capital cities of the ten member states with an impressive array of links, and yet at the same time served very few other cities in the region and no secondary cities within any country at all, except for the single example that proves the rule: Pointe-Noire, the seaside petrol port in the Congo Republic. But no Nouadhibou, for instance.

Outside of the major cities of its member-states, only Conakry and Lagos are served in Western Africa. Monrovia, Freetown, and Accra are bypassed. In Central Africa, the former member states of Cameroon and Gabon, which both subsequently set up their own national carriers, are still part of the system. Douala is connected to Bangui, Brazzaville, Cotonou, and Lagos—the latter a singular example of a non-member city connected with a non-member city. Even at this scale, it is unclear if the Douala—Cotonou route actually stopped in Malabo or this is just the confusion of the cartography. Likewise, Libreville is linked to Brazzaville, Lomé, and Lagos. No Yaoundé, however. 

A small detail that is easy to miss given the contours of the continental shelf is the Dakar—Las Palmas route. 

Air Afrique, Boarding Pass from the Congo, 1961

Here is an artifact from early in the life of Air Afrique: an old-fashioned ticket and boarding pass from 1961. While the details of the flight are not shown, the departure tax stub <<redevance>> was issued by the A.S.E.C.N.A. ground agents in the Republic of the Congo, the southernmost member of the Air Afrique coalition—indicating that this was likely departing from either Brazzaville or Pointe-Noire. In those days, destinations were many, mostly neighboring Libreville, Douala, or perhaps N'Djamena or Bangui. The ticket jacket provides the address of the airline's headquarters in Abidjan—perhaps that was the ultimate destination of this itinerary. 

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. 

ASKY Airlines Network: March/April 2014 (Eastern portion)

A double-page spread at the back of ASKY Airlines' in-flight magazine from earlier this year: while the airline's primary hub is in Lomé and its strongest presence is across the west coast, the carrier is firmly established into the Congo basin, stretching as far south as Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire and Kinshasa. There is actually quite an operation out of Libreville, it seems, with links to Lagos and what is apparently the only connection to Yaoundé (in a now-typical network model; few ASKY destinations are linked to only one other city). 

The sole connection to Bangui appears to be Douala, which is partially plunged into the spine of the magazine, as is Abuja, which seems to connect up to N'Djamena, the airline's northeasternmost city, aside from the shamrock-green codeshare flight to the superhub of its parent company, Ethiopian: Addis Ababa appears on the map at upper right, somewhere in distant Chad, if the map were to scale. 

The next post features the western portion of the map. 

Air Gabon: External and Internal Networks, early- to mid-1980s

This is a partial repost of one the delightful gems that feature with astonishing regularity at our fellow airline timetable blog, Airline Memorabilia: An un-dated, un-specified brochure of Air Gabon, guessed at to be from the early 1980s, and corresponding well to other artifacts posted here in the past of the now-defunct Gabonese flag carrier. Surely the international network are usual suspects: Lomé, Cotonou, Abidjan, and Dakar, and even at its tiny scale the world map shows a clump of electrical cords plugged in from Libreville to Marseille, Nice, Geneva, and surely Paris, and probably Rome.

Gabon was so French that it even had its own Air Inter: Air Inter Gabon, which apparently operated the circuit board at right: a staggeringly numerous network of intereur destinations—there appear to be nearly 30 in the New England-sized nation. Unfortunately, due the resolution of the file, the exact list of cities can only be guessed at comparing a map of the country with the graphic. Even The Encyclopedia of African Airlines chronicles only a handful of them. Clearly the coastal petrol station of Port-Gentil is linked along the coast, and the other coastal cities are almost certainly Iguela and Tchibanga.

There is an evident triskelion of air routes converging at the extreme southeast of the forested country, which is surely the city of Franceville and barely but clearly the very nearby center of Moanda is also shown. While larger towns such as Lambaréné and northernmost Oyem are unquestionably shown here as well as Bitam, Koulamoutou, Makokou, Mayoumba, and Mouila, but there were at least a dozen others at the time. Only a higher-res graphic would shed light.

Thanks as always to the generosity of the first-rate Airline Memorabilia blog for uncovering and sharing this unique item. 

Flight Connections from São Tomé & Príncipe, c.2009

A lost fragment of the internet, this orphan gif, a visual explanation of flight connections to tiny São Tomé & Príncipe, on not-particularly-recent vintage.

The microscopic archipelago is hardly a hub of anything, other than delicious and rare cocoa, but on this map it is the crossroads of the center of the map, the closest republic to where the prime meridian meets the equator. Or, at least, the Lusophone eastern hemisphere.

Luanda and Lisbon are linked, the former via TAAG Angolan Airlines, which still to this day continues on to Sal de Cabo Verde, the latter via TAP (of course) but something else called STP Airways, the acronym denoting the little-known state carrier. Lagos and Libreville are also looped in, the first via Ceiba, the Equatoguinean state carrier, the latter via something simply labelled 'air service.' How perfectly vague.

Douala in nearby Cameroon is served by SCD, an unknown acronym, which may be related to African Connection Airways, which apparently provides air service on the island which may, or may not, include Malabo, Port Harcourt, Brazzaville, Port-Gentil, Pointe-Noire and even Bangui, if its own map is to be believed. TAP is apparently re-routing its services as of July 1st via Accra.

Royal Air Maroc: The African destinations, 2011

Le Réseau Royal Air Maroc du Afrique shows the impressive extension of the airline's West and Central African operations as they stood in mid-2011. From Nouakchott to Niamey, Banjul to Brazzaville, Conakry to Kinshasa, RAM successfully bridges both the Anglophone and Francophone checkerboard of the region.

The map lacks route lines, which would be particularly helpful as many of these destinations are linked together before reaching the home airport at Casablanca (Freetown-Monrovia, for instance). Also, to connect with European and other intercontinental flights, many sub-Saharan cities are served at odd hours of the night—not the most convenient schedule, but for many of these cities, one of the few options out of town.

Air Afrique: The Schedules from Paris and Pointe-Noire, 1990

Continuing from the previous post, the schedule from Air Afrique to and from Paris CDG rounds out, followed by the schedule from Pointe-Noire, the Republic of Congo's coastal petrol capital.

Non-stop fights from Charles de Gaulle reach N'Djamena, Nouakchott, Niamey and Ouagadougou, as well as Rome, interestingly, an intermediate stop of RK011 to Dakar, shown in the previous post. Domestic connections to Nouadhibou on Air Mauritanie and to Yamoussoukro on Air Ivoire are shown.

Flights from Brazzaville and Lomé link to Pointe-Noire, one of Air Afrique's southernmost destinations. The schedule helpfully provides links to European destinations such as Nice, Geneva, Marseille, London, Cologne, Frankfurt, Brussels and Bordeaux; three of the connections from Brazzaville’s Maya Maya International Airport are listed on the DeHavilland DHC-6, or the Fokker F-28 and F-27 metal of Lina Congo, the obscure domestic airline of the Republic of the Congo. All three national airlines mentioned here (along with Air Afrique itself, of course) are now defunct.

Special thanks to the wonderful website Airline Memorabilia for the original posting. 

Air Afrique: The schedule from Abidjan, 1990 (continued)

Continuing with Air Afrique's summer 1990 schedule from Abidjan, originally posted on Airline Memorabilia. Here is the second page of the Abidjan schedule:

Alphabetically, the index begins with non-stop flights on UTA French Airlines to Nice on the weekends. Flights within the West African network, to Nouakchott, Ouagadougou,  Pointe Noire (via Brazzaville), and Yaoundé operate just a few times per week on an A-300.

There are near-daily connections to Paris, either in-directly via another Air Afrique city, or direct once weekly on a DC-10, in addition to the non-stop UTA services to CDG.

Interestingly, there is a single Thursday non-stop to Rio de Janeiro on-board VARIG listed. Other flights, to Rome, Stockholm, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna, Washington (connecting at JFK on Pan Am) and Zürich. The section on Accra starts with flights to Brussels.

South African Airways: African International Network, 2013

As detailed in the previous post, the inflight magazine for South African Airways lists the airline's network across Africa, showing flights to Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, Mauritius, Blantyre, Lilongwe, Entebbe, Maputo, Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Bujumbura, Kigali, and Libreville, exclusively with narrow-body A319 and B737-800 aircraft, except for the route to nearby Mauritius which uses the quad-engined wide body A340. Long-haul routes to four other continents, shown on the bottom half of the page, are detailed in the following post.

South African Airways: African International Timetable: 2013

From the mid-2013 in-flight magazine of South African Airways, which offers “Timetable Highlights,” here showing the schedule to international destinations in Africa as well as verbally describing the network to other continents. This page shows flights to Harare, Victoria Falls, Kinshasa, Accra, Abidjan, Luanda, Lagos, Windhoek, Pointe-Noire, and Cotonou. 

The following page is shown on the next post, which details the rest of the African network. 

ASKY Airlines Schedule, April 2013

The complete network schedule for ASKY Airlines from this spring, helpfully published in their in-flight magazine, detailing their weekly timetable for flights between twenty cities in West and Central Africa, from Banjul to Bamako to Brazzaville.

Ethiopian Airlines: The West African destinations, Spring 2013

Nearly twenty Ethiopian flights stretch across the African continent to points in Western and Southern Africa.

South African Airways: the African Network, 2013

Troubled, loss-making state carrier South African Airways, whose past has been covered extensively on Timetablist, continues to dominate its home continent as one of the largest African carriers. As shown in this flyer circulated at Munich airport earlier this year, the airline still has success connecting passengers via its antipodean hub at Johannesburg OR Tambo, which remains Africa's busiest airport.

Beyond the southernmost cone, detailed in the next post, SAA serves sixteen cities in Western, Central and Eastern Africa, from Dakar to Dar Es Salaam, including smaller airports such as Brazzaville, Bujumbura, Cotonou and Pointe-Noire. However, the airline by-passes the Sahel and Sahara on its way to its new remaining European gateways.

Billboard in Accra showing the Air Mali Network, 2011

Air Mali has, in recent years, made a strong effort to be relevant in the fast-growing but still tiny West African aviation market. Prominent billboards, such as this one on the Kanda Highway near Kotoka Airport in Accra, were part of its strategy to get noticed and get customers.

The network stretches from Pointe-Noire to Nouakchott, and concentrates heavily on the Francophone capitals. However, there are a few Anglophone cities served, as especially highlighted on this advert with Accra shown more prominently than even Bamako. Lagos is also linked, although central African serves to Libreville and Brazzaville appear to transit via Cotonou or Lomé. The Freetown-Monrovia service was short-lived, and since this billboard was erected in Ghana, the country has been torn apart by civil conflict, from which it is just now starting to recover. It's not clear from the airline's website how accurate this c.2011 route map is today.

Air Mali Network from Accra, November 2011

This billboard was positioned prominently at the intersection of Liberation Road and the Obasanjo Highway in the Airport area of Accra, Ghana in late 2011. It shows the network of Air Mali, fanning out from its hub at Bamako, yet its most prominent label is Accra itself. Air Mali, part of the Celestair group, which operates sister carriers Air Burkina and Air Uganda, offers scheduled services to more than 15 cities from Niamey to Nouakchott, Brazzaville to Dakar.

Air Mali Network, c.2009

From the Air Mali website, although not up to date. A warm and stately reseau showing Air Mali's network, stretching all the way to Pointe-Noire, off the map at the extreme lower-right. Helpfully, the route lines are color coded by aircraft type, a unique feature which is somewhat cryptically keyed by the "CRJ" and "MD" legend and lower left. Ouagadougou is misspelled. Accra is the only Anglophone city served, via Abidjan.