Qatar Airways Worldwide Network, 2011. Detail # 1: The Gulf Region & Western Hemisphere

Continuing from the last post, here is the first in a series of posts about Qatar Airways from back in 2011, when it began on to nip at the heels of super-rival Emirates, chasing that megacarrier to all corners of the globe in the formative decades of the ME3. 

Origin & destination traffic is not nearly as important as making Doha a global megahub like Dubai, even before the state-of-the-art Hamad International Airport even opened. Hence, early extension all the way to Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, as well as a fledgling operation to the four United States gateways, with Chicago in bright green, either as a cargo destination or in anticipation of its 2012 announcement of its new thrice-weekly passenger service which began in November 2013. These all connect with Qatar's regional, "Intra-Gulf" network—a triangle of cities between Kuwait, Muscat and Jeddah.

While only showing 14 cities on 3 continents on this page, dozens of other dots sprout across North America—presumably code-share connections although the map does not bother to explain.

VARIG: The Transatlantic Routes, c.1970

 

Remaining as Lusophone as our last post, here is a snippet of a folded, full-color map with the red routes of the storied Brazilian airline VARIG spanning across, sometime about half a century ago. In the analog era it was rather common for airlines to display their networks on commercially-available cartography rather than commissioning a custom graphic. 

This diagram demonstrates a now-bygone era when Rio de Janeiro's Galeão Airport was the country's primary intercontinental gateway, before it was eclipsed in the mid-1980s by São Paulo's new Guarulhos International.

What can be made out from this odd clipping are a web of long lines connecting Brazil to Europe, presumably several cities in Portugal besides just Lisbon, one of which apparent stops in Sal in the Cape Verde Islands (see previous post). 

A more unusual routing links the West African coast at Monrovia-Robertsfield, before continuing straight northward for what may be Lisbon or even Madrid. This way station existed for many years, the nadir of which was the tragic 1967 crash of VARIG Flight 837, a DC-8 on a Beirut-Rome-Monrovia-Recife-Rio routing. 

Once the links are received in Rio, a busy web of regional routes fans back out towards Buenos Aires, Porto Alegre, and Asunción. São Paulo seems a but a minor pit stop on the way to other places. A somewhat thinner red marking traces the vast Brazilian coast, linking Rio with Salvador, Recipe, Natal, and Belem, while an interior hop reaches the new capital, Brasilia. 

Aeromexico: The Intercontinental Routes, December 2015

 Somehow in the storied history of The Timetableist, now approaching its 11th anniversary, the great air carrier of the Federal Republic of Mexico has never been previously featured. Continuing from the previous post, it's opportune to take the fiesta stop-over in México D.F. and look at the country's remaining flag carrier as it looked in its expansionist phase of half a decade ago.

Aeromexico runs a three-continent strategy, covering the main gateways of the Americas, switching through its central Benito Juarez hub, while stretching its reach across the oceans with what is now an all-Dreamliner fleet. Of particular interest is the triplet of Trans-Pacific efforts: Mexico City—Tokyo (Narita), Monterrey—Narita, and Mexico City—Tijuana—Shanghai—Mexico City, which neatly landed Benito Juarez at exactly the same time as it took off from Pudong International. 

According to the always reliable Wikipedia, the Monterrey—Japan service was a temporary technical stop on the way from Mexico City in lieu of Tijuana. Service today is non-stop from Mexico City only. 

In early 2017, the carrier announced a second attempt to link the northern economic powerhouse of Nuevo León with Asia: a four times weekly Mexico City—Monterrey—Incheon schedule which, like the Tokyo service, would return eastbound non-stop. Apparently this proved unnecessary, as Aeromexico still served ICN as of early 2020 but only non-stop from Mexico City. 

While this peninsular service seems to have met with success—presumably due to links with SkyTeam megacarrier Korean Air—the non-stop to Shanghai and SkyTeam partner China Eastern proved less durable, as the thrice-weekly long haul was cut in mid-2019.

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. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: The Americas

Etihad operates some of the longest non-stop flights in the world from Abu Dhabi to the Western Hemisphere, as shown here on the left-hand side of its route map from last fall. While the 11 to 13 hour runs to New York JFK and Washington Dulles (launched in 2013) are hardly short-haul, it is the airline's 16 to 17 hour jaunts to California that remain atop the rankings: Abu Dhabi—Los Angeles, commenced in October 2013, is 5th, Abu Dhabi—San Francisco is 10th. Abu Dhabi—Dallas is 15th. It should also be noted that Etihad was the first of the ME3 to serve Chicago, first reaching the mid-American metropolis in 2009 as its second U.S. city—half a decade before Emirates and Qatar finally served O'Hare.

As with the Europe map, the North American cartography is a confusing jumble of codeshare connections, a knot of blue lines nearly obliterating the destinations at Etihad actually does serve. 

The single South American route, the non-stop to Sao Paulo, gives the airline and its home airport claim to six continent service, one of only a few airlines and airports that can boast such breadth. It was therefore all the more surprising that Etihad has been forced to retreat from the market: the last non-stop between Abu Dhabi at Brazil will fly in late March, a stunning defeat for a Gulf megacarrier.

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The American Routes

Yesterday's post introduced the latest Emirates route map, with its gorgeously-tessalated, neo-Fullerian projection. Left off that first post was this second page, showing the Americas exclusively (and a large swath of the southeast Pacific, interestingly). 

Emirates increasing number of routes to North America are some of the longest commercial flights in the world, especially the ultra-long haul Dubai—San Francisco and Dubai—Los Angeles runs, whose twice daily A380 services are scheduled in at a staggering 16 hours 15 minutes, currently the world's sixth longest non-stop flight, followed by Dubai—Houston, which is ninth. Dubai—Dallas is 17th, and Dubai—Fort Lauderdale is 24th, and Dubai—Orlando is 28th. 

Even though it doesn't rank as highly, the Sao Paulo non-stops generally top 15 hours, the Buenos Aires link an even longer haul. Indeed, the shortest route on this map is the controversial fifth-freedom Milan—New York JFK service. 

While Emirates continues to add U.S. gateways (as was discussed in posts earlier this month), it is interesting to note that several large cities have yet to be reached, particularly Mexico City but also Vancouver and Montreal (which is served by Qatar and Turkish Airlines). Miami was recently bypassed for Ft. Lauderdale, a curious development in American intercontinental aviation which has been covered extensively earlier this month.

The map does include the Dubai—Panama route, which at 17.5 hours would soar in the rankings of ultra-long haul services. However, this launch has been delayed for almost a year and the exact start date has not been set, it is both drawn on the system and featured in the box at lower right, which also announces the start of flights to Bologna and Bamako—the table itself an index of the extraordinary breadth and growth of this behemoth airline. 

Emirates: The Worldwide Route Map, March 2015

Continuing to look at Emirates this week, here is the intricate pinwheel of Emirates routes radiating out of Dubai in March 2015, scooping clockwise to East Asia and the Americas, Africa and Southern Europe, and counter-clockwise to Australia and Northern Europe. 

Several routes stand out from the spinning pattern: the controversial Milan Malpensa—New York JFK superjumbo operation being one, and the connection between Larnaca and Malta cuts across several of the three dozen routes which make up the tremendously dense European services. 

The network is at its most complex in Australasia, with the mini-hub in Singapore connecting via Colombo with onward routes directly to Brisbane and Melbourne, which also has a non-stop from Kuala Lumpur, whereas Sydney has a direct connection to Bangkok, which is itself linked to Hong Kong. All three eastern Australian cities connect to Auckland; Emirates is now a dominant player in the trans-Tasman market, flooding the antipodean skies with double-decker A380s, and making an additional appearance at Christchurch. 

Elsewhere, a few distant pairs are linked up operationally: the Rio de Janeiro service continues on to Buenos Aires (whereas Sao Paulo gets a dedicated non-stop); Accra and Abidjan have long been linked together. Most notably, Dakar is shown as triangulating with Conakry, although this perennially delayed service relaunch was only underway in October.

SAS: The Worldwide Routes, 1960

In looking at the 21st century SAS, we can compare yesterday's subject to same airline at the height of its global reach. 

One the more regal route maps to ever grace the Timetablist, this magnificent, dynamic cartography exemplifies an earlier era the grandeur of the jet age is reflected in the eloquence of this graphic design. A so-called “spiral-polar projection,” which was “created especially for Scandinavian Airlines System to illustrate its worldwide routes,” are the only notations to the map. 

A quad-jet whisks its way into the high atmosphere, the might of its propulsion sweeps up the landmasses themselves, with far Siberia pulled away from the surface of the planet. The very latitudes of the global are twisted into the vortex of the jetliner's contrail. 

Upon the surface of these landmasses, thick red lines spread outward from Northern Europe to five continents. At the outer limits of the first generation jetliner's range, an impressive Oslo—Los Angeles was achieved, and lasted for decades, which as mentioned yesterday only came back in March 2016. Montreal and New York (the latter via Glasgow, it seems) were the only other North American destinations.

South America was, somewhat incredibly, more thoroughly covered, with the system's Lisbon—Recife—Rio de Janeiro—Sao Paulo—Montevideo—Buenos Aires—Santiago service. Africa was also served with a classic east African spine, Rome—Athens—Cairo—Khartoum—Nairobi—Johannesburg. None of these South American or African cities are served today. 

In addition to a half-dozen Near Eastern cities, SAS operated a trans-Asian trunk route to rival those of other European aviation pioneers, with a scissors-base at Karachi linking to Calcutta—Rangoon—Bangkok, which split to either Jakarta or onward to Manila—Tokyo, which swung northward to Anchorage to return to Copenhagen, here transgressing the print's nautilus-shell projection of the globe. 

Image via the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

Lufthansa: The Worldwide Network, Part 2: The Afro-South American System.

Continuing from the previous post, it is, as always, interesting to note the enormous number of African destinations that were once served by European airlines. Lufthansa flew to a great many more African cities than today, shown here in three trunk lines extending across the Mediterranean. In the east, a route to Khartoum turns at Addis Ababa to make its way to Entebbe, then on to Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, where the line splits to terminate at Mauritius or further south to Johannesburg, which meets the central trunk from Tunis—Tripoli to Accra, Lagos and then Kinshasa, shown cluster together in the Bight of Benin. Many of these sub-Saharan services have been presented on the Timetablist before.

In the Western Mediterranean, a third line passes again through North Africa and continues straight across Dakar towards South America. turning only slightly at Rio de Janeiro, plunging further to Sao Paulo—Montevideo—Buenos Aires and turning 90 degrees to finish to Santiago, which is also linked along the Andes to northernly American cities.

As it has so many times in the past, Timetablist would like to express its appreciation for Flickr user caribb (Doug from Montreal)'s incredible collection, and to say thanks  for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Swissair: The Intercontinental Routes, Winter 1972

The five-continent network of d stretched from Santiago to Singapore, Montreal to Manila. Four cities in North America, four in South America, three in South Asia, and five in East Asia were connected with what here is simply denoted as "Switzerland" sitting at the center of Europe, whether Zürich or Geneva is not specified. The only other European cities marked are Athens and Istanbul. A denser array in the Near East: Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Nicosia, Tehran, and Tel-Aviv.

A special thanks to Flickr user caribb (Doug from Montreal) for the fair-use rights.

The particularly-strong African network will be featured in the following post. 

ASKY Airlines Network, March/April 2014 (Western Portion)

A continuation of the previous post, looking westward from Lomé, ASKY competes on the regular routes between Abidjan, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Dakar, and Conakry, while also offering stand-alone services such as the very rare Monrovia (Spriggs Payne)-Bissau service, which unfortunately was realigned to link to Conakry, one of a number of route realignments announced shortly after this issue of the magazine came out.

Speaking of Lusophone links, as with the previous post, the map disproportionately displays the distant destinations of mother-carrier Ethiopian Airlines, here advertising the relatively new Lomé-Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo services. Unfortunately, the Rio portion of this operation was unsuccessful, even in the midst of the World Cup and the imminent Olympics, Ethiopian dropped Galeão airport from its Brazilian service less than a month after this publication.

Royal Air Maroc Network, November 1983

The state carrier of the Kingdom of Morocco has always had a uniquely-diverse network, with a strong presence in its home region of North and Western Africa, a dense array of flights across Western Europe, and a handful of long-range services overseas.

This is only more so today, but thirty years ago Royal Air Maroc already offered flights to half a dozen West African capitals, as far south as Libreville. All of them francophone except for tiny Malabo.

Francophonia features prominently across the network, linking seven cities in metropolitan France, from tiny Lille to Toulouse and Bordeaux. Much father afield, one of longest flights is to Montreal via New York, a route which the airline still serves today.

Interestingly, South America was also reached, with a single flight connecting Rio and Sao Paulo. At the eastern end of its extent, RAM's jets found their way to Damascus, Kuwait, and several other cities in the Middle East.

In this blood orange graphic (the larger background is a sunset photo), the Montreal-New York-Casablanca-Cairo-Jeddah route is emphasized in bold, for reasons unclear.

This image was derived from a post on Royal Air Maroc page of the encyclopedic Timetable Images blog. 

South African Airways: the Transatlantic routes, 2013

South African Airways maintains four trans-Atlantic routes from Johannesburg to the Americas: two that remain in the Southern Hemisphere: to Buenos Aires and São Paulo, and two that cross the equator to the Northern Hemisphere: non-stop to New York, and to Washington-Dulles via Dakar. 

South African Airways: Long-Haul to Six Continents, 2013

Continuing from the previous post: the long-haul flights of South African Airways, exclusively on A340 and A330 aircraft, and exclusively out of Johannesburg, to all six inhabited continents: New York via Dakar, Washington, in North America; São Paulo and Buenos Aires in South America; London, Frankfurt, and Munich in Europe; Perth in Australia; and Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Beijing in Asia. It is one of the few airlines to serve all six continents, although that may not last as SAA's financial situation continues to deteriorate and long-standing intercontinental partnerships are scrapped.

Ethiopian Airlines Addis Ababa-Lomé-Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo, July 2013

While no Brazilian carrier currently serves West Africa, as of July of this year the South American cone and the Western coast of Africa are connected via one of the world's more unusual routes. Ethiopian Airlines connected a fifth continent to its 55-year old network when a brand-new B787 Dreamliner took flight from tiny Lomé, Togo to Rio de Janeiro, with a continuing service to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Lome is also the home base for Ethiopian-affiliated super-regional ASKY Airlines. The Dreamliner apparently also serves the transcontinental Lomé-Addis Ababa section; ET506/507 spans half the globe thrice-weekly.

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. 

VARIG: Worldwide Network, 1973

The International route network of VARIG Brazilian Airlines in 1973 is a fascinating glimpse into a bygone world of flag carriers. Far more European cities are linked directly or indirectly with Brazil by its main airline than today, an indecipherable tangle of routes connects even tertiary airports such as Geneva and Copenhagen. The network funnels together at Rio de Janeiro, with Sao Paulo a tiny dot in Rio's shadow; today Sao Paulo is by far the dominant gateway into South America. Also note the southern Atlantic routes, particularly to Lagos and Cape Town. Ironic that four decades later this rising economic giant does boast a global carrier with an equal reach on continental Europe or Africa.

See the following post for a detail on the South American section of VARIG's network. 

Munich Departures, August 2013

The last departures before midnight on a Sunday evening at Munich's airport in August of this year reveals many of Bavaria's more exotic visitors: South African Airways to Johannesburg, and Turkish to Izmir, and Emirates to Dubai, with long-haul services by Lufthansa from its second-biggest hub to Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Of shorter duration is an Easyjet hop to London Gatwick. Before midnight there are two flights to Moscow, one on S7 to Domodedovo and one on Aeroflot to Sheremetyevo. There is an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. There are also charter services to Palma de Mallorca and Antalya.

TACA: The Lima Hub, 2011

No corner of the globe has undergone such a radical re-alignment of aviation interests than Latin America, in which all but a handful of state carriers and private operators (not least including VIASA, VASP, Transbrasil, VARIG, Lloyd Aero Boliviano, Ladeco, Ecuatoriana, Aviateca, NICA, and Sahsa) have disappeared. In addition to the asphyxiatingly ubiquitous LAN Group, and a variety of promising mainline start-ups and a plethora of low-cost ventures, South America is now territory covered by Grupo TACA, through its 1999 merger with Avianca.

That marriage included the rebranding of a unit based at Lima, formerly known as TransAm but now operating as TACA Peru, with Avianca as a 49% shareholder. The division serves ten major cities from Santiago to Santa Cruz to Sao Paulo, and connects northwards to TACA's hubs in Central America as well as Mexico City and Miami.

USAirways: Charlotte to Sao Paulo, June 2013

COPA's service from Boston to Panama is not the only new Latin American service launching from the Eastern US this summer. USAirways, which will never be known for bold, globe-trotting expansion, surprised many in 2009 when its strategy to capture the ever-increasing opportunities on international flights was to inaugurate service from its North Carolina hub at Charlotte Douglas to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

That service is now accompanied by a parallel sub-equatorial route, with a nightly flight from Charlotte to Sao Paulo, the country's and continent's largest city and most important business hub. The rather drab notice was posted on the airline's website, which notes that an old B767 will be rerouted to run the long inter-American leg. As uninspiring as the dull skyline picture used on the announcement page.