CP Air: Worldwide Network, c.1983

The wonderfully random route network of Canadian Pacific Airlines in its classic CP Air age, when it was the airborne division of Canada's premier transport companies but not able to fly it's premier international routes. A unique collection of flights fan out to four other continents, two across the Pacific: Vancouver—Tokyo—Hong Kong and Vancouver—Honolulu—Nadi—Sydney, and one venturing south to the cone of Latin America: Mexico City—Lima—Santiago—Buenos Aires.

From the Alberta prairie, a transpolar route links Edmonton to Amsterdam, linking to a Rome—Athens route. A second trans-Atlantic flight from Montreal lands at Amsterdam, while a third European route also starts in Montreal, but leaps southward to Santa Maria in the Azores, then to Lisbon, Madrid, and connecting again at Rome. Paris and London are absent.

SATA Air Açores Network, 2011.

Aside from SATA Internaçional's impressive charter and scheduled transocean services, shown in the previous post, which stretch from the Pacific to the Baltic, SATA's inter island services extend southward to Madeira, and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, and across each Azore, linking with the principal cities of Portugal proper: Lisbon, of course, but also Faro and Oporto.

TAP Air Portugal Network, 1974: Detail of European Routes.

The taut routes of TAP Air Portugal's European and Atlantic network accentuate Lisbon's position betwixt the large cities of the northwestern continent and the warmer islands of the Portuguese realm in the Azores and Madeira. Much of these latter operations are now handled not by TAP but by SATA Air Açores, as well as numerous low-cost and charter carriers. Yet in the 1970s, the state carrier still undertook linking even tiny airports such as Porto Santo and Santa Maria with its mainline operations. Porto Santo and Las Palmas are no longer served today, although TAP has since expanded into eastern and southern Europe and maintains service to all of the continental cities shown here.

See the previous post for TAP's services to Africa and the Americas from the same item.