Saudia: The International Route Map, 1983

A previously unfeatured item from the incredible memorabilia collection of Flickr user caribb. Saudi Arabian green colors all this map's continents, of which Saudia had reached four as of the end of 1982 and the beginning of 1983, the period for which this map was created. Dhahran, Jeddah and Riyadh were the main hubs, as they are today.

Saudia's deafening L-1011s and jumbo B747s reached from Manila to New York. Saudia, which was rebranded Saudi Arabian Airlines in the late 1990s, still serves Kano and Khartoum, but is absent from Mogadishu-- an unusual destination even then. Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Washington, Hong Kong and Guangzhou are some of the destinations added since then. (the next post will detail the European destinations).

Special thanks to Flickr user caribb for the create commons license to repost.

Ethiopian Airlines: The Northeast Africa and Asian Routes, 2011

Ethiopian continues to have more comprehensive services across Asia than its regional rival, Kenya Airways. Riyadh, Kuwait, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Tel Aviv and Beirut are all exclusive to Ethiopian and reflect the country's links with the entire Gulf region, including Israel.

Likewise, whereas Kenya Airways serves only Mumbai, Ethiopian serves Delhi (curiously, here marked "New Delhi") and from there on to Beijing, which is one of four cities in East Asia. Remarkably, it was recently announced that Ethiopian will add a fourth Chinese city, Hangzhou, to its route map in 2011.

This is one of four posts detailing the worldwide network of Ethiopian Airlines.

Sudan Airways: The International Routes, April 1977

Yet another jaw-droppingly rare find from the world-class collection of Flickr user caribb: This unembellished matrix shows Sudan Airways "Blue Nile international Jet services" as of April, 1977.

The Gulf is heavily favored-- it is not common to find artifacts from this era showing routes to the 21st century hubs of today: Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha; however these are paired with the popular destinations of that contemporary vintage: San'a, Jeddah, and Bahrain.

Sudan's Nile-striped B707s connected to Europe, often via Cairo. None of the European services exist today. A single route heads westward to other Saharan cities, neighboring N'Djamena and terminating at Kano. This is apparently still active.

In its own region, Sudan Airways is startlingly spare: Addis Ababa, Entebbe, Dar Es Salaam, Mogadishu, Djibouti, and other, more distant candidates are absent. Perhaps there was a political explanation for this.

In quite an ironic foreshadowing, Juba, the capital of the newly-independent South Sudan, is show, here as part of the international network, connected to both Khartoum and Nairobi. It is only now, some 33 years later, that Khartoum-Juba flights will cross an international border.

Please see the next post for the contemporary domestic route map.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Syrianair Network: c. 2005-6

This somewhat over-designed refraction is Syrianair's network route map, c. 2005/6, showing a strong Mid-East and North African network, and plenty of European routes. The black routes come out of Damascus, extending to Manchester and Casablanca, whereas red routes seem to emanate from Aleppo, connecting as far as Stockholm, which, like Paris, is badly out of place. Even with the lazy labeling by three-letter codes, Barcelona is unmarked.

The destinations in the central circle will be detailed in the next post.