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: East Asia

While Qatar Airways's global coverage thins out as it reaches the Pacific, the airline offers a respectable seven gateways into China, including Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Chongqing—one of the few external airlines to serve these secondary Chinese cities. Qatar Airways is also one of only a handful of airlines to serve Clark Airport in Subic Bay, in the Philippines—although Emirates also flies non-stop from Dubai, presumably as a conduit for labor migrants to the Gulf region. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: East Asia & Australia

Continuing on from the previous post, the right-hand side of Etihad's route map shows its presence in East Asia and the key Australian routes, including Melbourne and Sydney, two of the airline's five A380 destinations. Beijing—Nagoya is a rare non-direct-to-Abu Dhabi connection for Etihad, which even has fifth-freedom rights within the route. Likewise, Chengdu is a rather daring entry into central China in what is otherwise a strategy strictly limited to primary cities—perhaps the airline was stung by the failure of its Chonqing service—one of only a handful cities that Etihad has retreated from. Qatar Airways has followed Etihad, launching flights to Chengdu in 2013. 

Emirates Route Map, August 2016: The Global Routes

Since last year, Emirates undertook a redesign of their increasingly-complex route map. This stunning, dynamic work of pseudo-Dymaxion cartography is the result.

Over the next week, each page and inset of the route map will be posted in detail. This is page one, showing the red superhighways of superjumbos bolting out of Dubai like a network of refinery pipelines (fitting for a Gulf carrier). Africa, East Asia and Australasia are shown fully; South Asia and the Middle East are blank. Likewise, Europe is left mostly empty, except as it indicates the trans-Atlantic routes, which are shown passing polarwise for North America and in a trans-equatorial conduit across central Africa.

This map best represents the far Asian routes from Beijing to Bangkok and, as was discussed in the last post, the megadarrier's predominance in the Southeast Asia—Australia market and the trans-Tasman airspace, the interconnections between Bangkok and Singapore and the major Australian cities, and onward to Auckland.

SAS: Intercontinental routes, 2003

Yesterday's post, with its many routes between Scandinavia at Thailand, relate to this polar-projection route map, showing the intercontinental routes of Scandinavian Airlines in 2003. A decade ago, those consisted of flights to the United States and East Asia, mostly from Copenhagen, although there were also Stockholm—Chicago,  Stockholm—Newark, and Oslo—Newark flights.

Since the publication of this timetable, there have been a number of changes: Seattle was dropped in 2009 after 42 years of non-stop service, Bangkok followed in 2013, ending 60 years of service, and flights from Singapore are now operated only by Singapore Airlines. In their place, Shanghai was added to the network in 2012,  San Francisco flights started in 2013, and Stockholm—Hong Kong began in 2015. 

The expansion has continued rapidly in the past year: Stockholm—Los Angeles was relaunched in March 2016, a return to Southern California after three decades of absence, and two routes to Miami began in September 2016.

Thai Airways Route Table: Routes from Bangkok, P-Z, November 2016

Continuing on from the previous series of posts, here is the second page of Thai Airways's Route Table in the back of its in-flight magazine. This post finishes tagging all the destinations from Bangkok, as nearby as Siem Reap (this post marking the premier of this destination on The Timetablist) and Vientiane, to as distant as Zürich, Rome and Stockholm. Note that both Haneda and Narita are present for Tokyo, and Xiamen is one of the mainland Chinese cities which have joined the network. 

Although Thai Airways is diminished from its previous glory days, because of the strength of Thailand as a leisure destination, it remains present in a number of secondary European gateways, as this route table shows. 

Thai Airways: The eastward route network, 2013

The right-hand side of the route network of Thai Airways International, another page from a 2013 edition of the flag carrier's Sawasdee inflight magazine, continuing from the previous post. Most connections from Bangkok, are unsurprising, with a number of cross-connections at Hong Kong and Seoul, although perhaps more interesting are the routes to Kunming and Chengdu in interior China. The inset shows domestic routes and the now-scrapped service to Los Angeles.

Thai Airways: The International Routes, 2013

Like Garuda (not to mention Malaysia Airlines), Thai Airways International is still a going concern but is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. This table, from the back of Thai Airway's inflight magazine from 2013, illustrates the point. Information listing the airline's international services from Bangkok from R—Z, with Rome no longer a destination. A handful of secondary leisure routes are shown thereafter, such as Copenhagen—Phuket and Stockholm—Phuket, and intra-Asian flights such as Hong Kong—Seoul and Hong Kong—Taipei, as well as the old Seoul—Los Angeles route which was removed from the schedule in 2015 after 35 years of service.

Also interesting here are the number of routes to tertiary Indian cities, specifically Varanasi and Gaya, presumably as pilgrimage sites. 

Royal Brunei Network, c.2013

Continuing from the last post, here is another Royal Brunei route map, from some time before the flag carrier's logo changed, de-emphasizing the open-palmed crest of the Sultanate in favor of the current, boring monogram. It's often fun when pictograms stand in for cities; those here by and large stay within the pedestrian and predictable—a beefeater for London, the Merlion of Singapore, the Petronas Towers for Kuala Lumpur, a camel ride for Dubai, the Oriental Pearl TV tower for Shanghai, the skyline of Central for Hong Kong, oranutangs for Kota Kinabalu—although probably less know is the symbol Surabaya, the statue depicting the legend of the shark fighting the crocodile. Also, its unclear how Melbourne is particularly associated with a hot air balloon. 

Royal Brunei Airlines Routes, 2016

The Timetablist has featured Royal Brunei before—compare the above map, currently printed in this month's inflight magazine, with the 2011 version posted previously. This small airline of one of only two sovereign sultanates in all the world. The carrier has traditionally connected the tiny southeast Asian statelet, the only country whose territorial extent exists entirely on the island of Borneo, with the rest of east Asia, and has also long operated a route to London Heathrow via Dubai, which is today operated with the sleek B787. The non-stop flight to Jeddah is a somewhat more recent development. As recently as that last post, multiple cities in Australia were served, now the sole route is Melbourne. The inset shows some codeshare partnerships with Garuda, Thai, MAS and Turkish, although other than Istanbul, RB already flies to each destination shown. 

Singapore Airlines: The Asian connections, 2013

From a global business traveler magazine back cover, Singapore Airlines, Silk Air and Changi Airport partner to boast of the easy connections from Manila to Male, Denspasar to Delhi. While the routes fan upwards toward mainland and offshore China, they do not attempt to show Korea or Japan, but instead link a dozen cities each in India, Indonesia and Southeast Asia, many of which are in fact served by the little sister carrier, SilkAir.

Most notably dating the advert is the list of long-haul routes: San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles and New York. While all four cities are served from Singapore, none are nonstop nowadays, as the ultra-long haul A340 flights were discontinued at the end of 2013. Today they are paired Houston-Moscow, Los Angeles-Tokyo, New York-Frankfurt, and San Francisco with both Seoul and Hong Kong.

El Al: 3 times weekly to Boston, June 2015

Banner ads have started appearing for El Al's latest expansion into the United States market: thrice-weekly flights from Tel Aviv to Boston, beginning in June of this year.  El Al apparently served Logan Airport in previous decades, but it's return is part of the remarkable intercontinental expansion from Logan, which has seen the airport go from flights almost exclusively to Europe and Caribbean to non-stops to Tokyo on JAL, Beijing (and also in June Shanghai) on Hainan—these three all with the B787 Dreamliner,—as well as Emirates to Dubai, Turkish to Istanbul, and Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, which begins in May. Copa Airlines recently started flights to Boston, and Aeromexico resumes non-stop flights to Mexico City starting in May as well.

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.

Finnair to Asia, March 2013

Few carriers in the world have turned their geographic lemons into lemonade as Finnair, whose dominant strategy in the last 10-15 years has been to look beyond its own tiny home market to become a dominant carrier between Europe and the distant destinations of Asia. This began in the late 1990s with succesful runs to major mixed business/leisure hubs from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Bangkok and Singapore. Today, this includes a daring strategy to link second-tier mainland Chinese cities, such as Chongqing and Xi'an, with little Vantaa Airport in Helsinki, spanning Eurasia by linking European business centers with emerging megacapitals of the Far East, which later this year will include Ho Chi Minh City but was curiously unsuccessful in reaching Guangzhou.

The map above, an eye-catching global map from a web banner ad, shows 13 long-haul non stops. Also helpfully, and perhaps a little hopefully, the map shows the link to New York, suggesting a JFK to Japan journey via Scandinavia.

China Eastern Airlines: Shanghai-Frankfurt-Hamburg, 2012

A blue-hued depiction of the route of China Eastern Airlines between Shanghai Pudong and Hamburg via Frankfurt, as shown on the China Eastern website, which, like most of the carriers of the People's Republic, is mostly in Chinese, even for a member of SkyTeam. Not many foreign carriers serve Hamburg, despite its size and wealth, but linking the two massive ocean ports via air must be imperative enough to warrant the once-weekly extension of MU219/220 to Hamburg, which started in August of 2011. Its not clear why the interface lists the random selection of destinations in Asia, Australia and Canada as it does at right.

Royal Brunei Airlines Network, 2011

Since it first started flight to London in 1990, Royal Brunei Airlines has offered something of an alternative to the traditional Kangaroo Route choices, with its links to several Australian cities (but not, apparently, Sydney) via the tiny Sultanate's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, and Dubai to Heathrow Terminal 4. There are even links to five cities in the British Isles, courtesy of BMI, as shown in the cartouche at lower left. The airline serves ten regional cities as well, from Shanghai to Singapore to Surabaya. This item was found via the Daily Mail online, in some sort of promotion with department store John Lewis.

Delta Air Lines: the East Asia/Pacific Routes, January 2012

Continuing from the previous post, this detail of Delta's January 2012 route map shows the airline's numerous routes spreading out of its Tokyo Narita hub to Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Taipei, Busan, Seoul, Shanghai, Manila, the latter also served from Nagoya, whereas the Micronesian islands of Saipan, Guam and Palau are also served from mainland Japan, including Osaka-Kansai. Numerous routes lead off to the right to the United States, as shown in the previous post. A score of mainland Chinese cities, dotted in blue to indicate connection via SkyTeam parents such as Korean Air, China Eastern, and China Southern, beckons before the curvature of the earth at left.

Delta's Transpacific Routes, January 2012

A map from the beginning of the year showing Delta's crisscrossing of the north Pacific. The remnants of Northwest Airlines half-century of service across the rim of the Pacific is clearly evident with Tokyo as a through-put hub, and Detroit, acting successfully if somewhat curiously as the primary Asian gateway of the long-haul system, as well as also keeping Minneapolis connected to Narita. Added to this are Delta's old standby, Atlanta, and its upstart hub at Salt Lake City (the first time Utah's capital has been mentioned on Timetablist).

Non-hubs Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco enjoy non-stops to Tokyo, and Portland, Oregon also continues to be blessed with a prestigious non-stop to Japan. Seattle has actually fared better under Delta than under Northwest: the Department of Transportation awarded a highly-lucrative non-stop to Beijing, the only entry point aside from Detroit, and a Sea-Tac to Kansai connection. Detroit also has the only transocean flight to Hong Kong, whereas Atlanta was granted DOT approval for a non-stop to Shanghai-Pudong (although this route was ultimately unsuccessful and has since been suspended). Lastly are a trio of lucrative connections between Honolulu and mainland Japan, including Osaka and Nagoya.

Note that Delta serves Haneda now also, as many international carriers scrambled to do. Tucked in between the massive Narita operation and the new mainland China gateways is Seoul Incheon, where Delta's SkyTeam partner, Korean Air, has its super hub, although Delta only links to the mainland US via Detroit (Korean Air serves Atlanta). Now that both China Eastern and China Southern are part of SkyTeam, mainland connections may be just as important.

The following post will detail the Asian portion of the map, showing connections from Narita to Southeast Asia.

Air Mauritius Network, c.2011

Air Mauritius, Africa's fourth-largest airline, has an admirable reach across four continents. Especially impressive are the links with three Australian and three South African cities, the four largest hubs of India (bridging the sizable South Asian diaspora on the island state) and the cluster of long routes to Europe: six major gateways in five countries, plying the high-end tourist trade. Shanghai had just been added at the time of this map's publication, and two grey circles detail code-share set-ups which reach deep into westernmost Europe and southeast Asia. Unfortunately, since this graphic was drawn, some of this spread has retreated: Kuala Lumpur, Milan, Sydney and Melbourne are all sadly departed.

Air India: International Routes, c. 2012

Air India's global reach appears more comprehensive at first than it really is given this map's format. Once it is understood that the red lines indicate other air carriers, Air India's operations are in proper perspective: most of the cities on the map are unnecessary, including those such as Chicago which Air India served for years but flies to no more. In fact, the state carrier of one of the world's largest countries incredibly serves fewer than 25 international cities. Note the non-stop from Frankfurt to Amritsar, and another from Bangalore to Singapore, and that Kolkata has no international services. The world of Air India is rather diminutive.

The following post will detail the inset of the Middle Eastern routes.