Aeromexico: The North American Routes, December 2015

 Continuing from the previous post, a second map from Aeromexico's in-flight magazine at the end of 2015, showing the airline's array of flights from seven cities to its NAFTA partners. 

Although Aeromexico serves 18 cities in los Estados Unidos, this is perhaps fewer than might be guessed; it is fewer U.S. airports than British Airways to London, for instance. Most flights originate in Mexico City, with a handful fanning out from the northern economic powerhouse of Monterrey—which will be the subject of the subsequent post. There are a few flights out of the country's second largest city: Guadalajara, but surprising only one flight from Cancún, Mexico's second busiest airport, to New York; today the route is flown only by Delta and American Airlines. While Avianca and COPA fly to several Florida cities such as Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa, Aeromexico only served Orlando and Miami, and the Merida flight has been discontinued. The flight to Denver is now year-round. The flight from Morelia, in Michoacán, to Chicago-O'Hare is still flying seasonally. The Boston flight, which commenced in June of that year, has sadly since been discontinued.

There is a more significant cluster of flights up to (Alto) California, including to less commonly-served airports such as Sacramento, Ontario, and Fresno—which are all premiering on The Timetablist with this post. The Guadalajara—Fresno link is especially notable as the San Joaquin Valley metro has no direct flights to domestic cities such as New York, Washington, or Houston.  Los Angeles has links to four cities. 

The three largest airports of Canada are connected to Benito Juarez; the flight to Vancouver has been an apparent success. 

EVA Air Network, c. 2010

Continuing to look at the airlines of Taiwan, here is straightforward route map of the Republic of China's secondary carrier, EVA Air, in its signature evergreen. From Taoyuan, long haul operations spread east and west, to Europe and North America; EVA was one of the earliest Asian carriers to land at Seattle and has long served Vancouver as well. (Houston has since been added). 

Amsterdam and Vienna are interesting European destinations, and are still served in an unusual routing via a minihub Bangkok—only Paris is served direct from the home airport. Other notable destinations include the sole antipodean city of Brisbane, and a number of secondary cities in Japan such as Fukuoka, as well as the Osaka—Los Angeles supplementing its direct service from Taipei.

Notably absent from the map is any Mainland China service; EVA Air now flies to 17 cities in the PRC.

Fly China Airlines and explore Asia, 2015.

Continuing to look at China Airlines, this print advertisement from last year details the carrier's trans-Pacific schedule to North America. Below the lovely kaleidoscopic imagery, a table details the schedule and frequency of flights from five gateways to Taipei Taiyoun: Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver. Up until 2008, China Airlines flew to Seattle as well. 

Sichuan Airlines: Thrice-Weekly Chengdu-Melbourne, February 2013

As has been noted previously on The Timetablist, regional Chinese airlines have in the past several years cast a wider and wider net beyond the borders of China, and even beyond the shores of Asia. 

One of the most ambitious of late has been medium-sized Sichuan Airlines, whose growth has been underpinned by the growing importance of its homebase, Chengdu, which is today one of interior China's cosmopolitan gateways. 

Sichuan first made headlines with its bold announcement to fly to distant Vancouver from Chengdu, via coastal Shenyang, a service which started in June 2012. Less than a year later, the airline launched long-haul service to a third continent, Australia, with thrice-weekly flights to Melbourne. By the end of 2013, the airline had also launched a separate twice-weekly Chongqing-Sydney service.

The above advertisement boasts of this offering, with a fold-out business class shell holding its own to international standards. Fold-out luxury and privacy is also indicated by the wooden screen at the left of the ad, and if that wasn't enough Oriental flourish, a bough of bamboo is tucked in behind the inviting premium seat. 

The ad has a bit of the old school, if anything, with the service schedule tabled at the bottom (in fact this sort of information is quite helpful and normally these key details are not at all accessible in a print ad of this sort). 

Sichuan most recently made more big headlines earlier this quarter with commencement of service to Dubai, on a twice weekly Chengdu-Yinchuan-DXB routing. Although Emirates has yet to penetrate inner China, Etihad has flown Abu Dhabi-Chengdu daily since way back in 2011, joining other global carriers such as British Airways, KLM, Qatar Airways and United that have touched down in Szechuan from other continents. 

Cathay Pacific: System Timetable, Winter 1989-90

It's hard to make out all the various cities in Cathay Pacific's network in the immediate years following the return of Hong Kong to China, but it is interesting to note that a non-stop to Manchester was added to the network for this 1989-90 winter, a route which does not exist today. Port Moresby was added to the route to Auckland, and network stretched into the Indian Ocean with a flight to Mauritius.  A single trans-Pacific service links San Francisco, via Vancouver.

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.

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.

Qantas Routes, c.1955

A map for Qantas from about the same era as the previous post, showing the predominant Australian carrier with all its five-continent reach, from Victoria to Vancouver, Johannesburg to Japan. Similar to this post from last year, also showing the pre-jet era Qantas, yet in this map the airline had spanned the Pacific to San Francisco, a route which commenced in 1954, just five year before the arrival of its first B707s.

Air Pacific Network, 2004

Another colorful map from a South Pacific carrier, this Air Pacific, the state airline of Fiji, displays a fan of spectral ribbons across the vast ocean, from Vancouver and Tokyo to Canberra and Christchurch, all via Nadi, the international airport Vita Levu. Tokyo, Vancouver, Wellington and Canberra have all been cancelled: this map was during a very brief period when Air Pacific flew to the Australian capital, which currently enjoys no international services.

Scheduled Passenger Routes from Hawaii, 1971: East of the Dateline

A fun artifact from the State Department of Transportation (of Hawaii, presumably) studying the transocean air links of the archipelago. Most flights are indeed from Honolulu. This first post tags the eastbound services to the US West Coast and Vancouver, to Alaska due north, and across to Mexico, as well as inter-Polynesian flights to Tahiti and Samoa. The flights to Acapulco in particular are interesting, as no long-haul flights exist from this fading resort town today.

The only drawback of this representation is it leads the reader to guess which of the airlines listed in box at upper left serve which routes. Some are easy to discern. Several others, such as Western Airlines, TWA, and UTA, no longer fly anywhere.

The next post will detail the westbound flights to Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, and Asia.

CP Air: Worldwide Routes, October 1978: Detail of Pacific Network

Continuing from the previous post, showing the Pacific portion of CP Air's October 1978 route network. Vancouver dominates as the airline's home base, with strong showings a the prairie capitals of Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. All four western Canadian cities are connected to Honolulu, which is merely a way station for further stops at the international airport at Nadi (here spelled Nandi) in Fiji, finally finishing at Sydney. A single Asian route links Vancouver to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Routes out of Vancouver also link California, and further down the Pacific coast to Acapulco and Lima, as shown in the earlier post. An extensive domestic network across Northwestern Canada extends as far as Whitehorse.

CP Air: Worldwide Routes, October 1978

The incredibly complex connectivity of the classic Canadian Pacific Air Lines route network in October 1978 is shown here in this blazoning vintage advert. Then operating as CP Air, the aviation arm of the Canadian conglomerate offered passenger services to 14 international airports on five continents from no less than five separate gateways across Canada.

Particularly key was the European gateway of Amsterdam, which lined to four Canadian cities: Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, although somewhat oddly not its primary airport, Vancouver. CP Air jets also departed Toronto for Milan, and Rome, with onward service to Athens from both Rome and Amsterdam. Rome and Lisbon, but not Amsterdam, were served from Montreal, which also enjoyed service to Mexico City. Toronto was also linked to Mexico City as well as Acapulco and Lima. Whether the continuing service from Lima to Santiago, finally terminating at Buenos Aires, were originally from Toronto or Vancouver is unclear.

CP Air also connected all its international gateways, except Montreal, to Honolulu, from whence it plunged far south to Antipodea. CP Air's Pacific operations, shown above, will be detailed in the following post.

Philippine Air Lines: Las Vegas to Vancouver, March 2011

The status of Philippine Airlines Flight PR107 from Las Vegas to Vancouver, with onward service to Ninoy Aquino International Airport at Manila, Philippines. Surely one of the more unusual transborder scheduled services in North America, and one of the more exotic airlines serving Nevada, Philippine Airlines seems to have been successful in adding McCarran to its trans-Pacific quad jet flight to Vancouver. Possibly the infinite affinity particular to the Filipino for fancy gambling fanfare makes this peculiar flight pattern feasible.

The Intercontinental Destinations from Munich, Summer 2011: Western Hemisphere

Despite the increasing presence of exotic global carriers and the extensive reach of the Star Alliance, Munich remains a primary gateway into Central Europe from North American cities. Air Canada, United Airlines, USAirways, and Delta all fly to Munich, but Lufthansa is the primary carrier across the Atlantic to the Alps.

Qantas: Worldwide Network, March 1973

Yet another goldmine from the lustrous vein of Flickr user caribb's collection, the next three posts will examine the fold-out global route map of Qantas from its timetable issued 4 March 1973.

Qantas was quite a different operation in these days of the early jet age: aside from a dense weave of antipodean services between Australia and New Zealand, and a web of southeast Asian services, the Australian carrier branched around the globe, with a number of rather curious waystations which aren't on its network today in the Middle East and Europe. These will be examined in more detail in the following two posts.

But surely what is most unusual in the entire system is its secondary round-the-world link: the Australian airline's famous "Fiesta Route." A completely unique routing which began in 1966 with the first of the airline's 747s, spanned the South Pacific at Fiji and Tahiti, then crossed the  rest of the ocean and the equator to reach Acapulco, Mexico, hopping on to Mexico City, the wingéd Kangaroo continued eastward to the British colonies at Nassau and then Bermuda, and transversing the Atlantic to finish at London.

The next two posts will examine this item in more detail.

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.

JAL to America, Winter 2002

This second JAL page reveals more history of American Airlines than Japan Air Lines. This table shows American's erstwhile transpacific routes from San Jose and Seattle to Narita, as well as the ill-fated Osaka-Dallas/Fort Worth service. JAL is, sadly, planning to retreat from its Tokyo-Sao Paulo service in the future as it deals with its financial woes.

British Airways, the North American routes, Autumn 1999

The Trans-atlantic routes are the lifeblood of BA, but its interesting to note that a handful of these cities no longer see jets from London. These include Pittsburgh, which was once a major midwestern hub and is today eerily quiet, and Detroit, from which sadly BA recently withdrew as an unprofitable destination. More interesting are the sunbelt boomtowns, such as Charlotte, which is still connected to Europe by USAirways, as well as Phoenix and San Diego, which despite their growing size seem to lack the cosmopolitan need for a connection to Heathrow.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: Boston Logan

Boston has never been a true hub for any airline, other than a feeder to a handful of European airlines or a catchment for high-value local passengers. American's array in 2002 included more code-shares than mainline services, mostly long-range transcontinental runs; connections to hubs; and its flagship transatlantic routes, often on glistening silver B777s. Links via other carriers to Canada, Down-east, the Islands are shown; all of this intersperses at right, with Bermuda, New York, Paris, London, Halifax and Burlington shown in counter-clockwise arrangement from 4 to 1 as being equidistant from Logan. Islip, Ottawa, Vancouver and Chicago are all arrayed from 11 to 8.

American Airlines Hub Maps, 2002: Dallas/Fort Worth

DFW: American's headquarters hub and its southern transcontinental supercomplex. An astounding number of domestic non-stops, from a long vertical row down the California coast to a matching column on the eastern seaboard, and an arch spanning the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Canada. At bottom, a diagonal curve of Mexican cities is shown, with a more random array of subtropical cities below this, including Belize, Panama, Lima, Santiago, Caracas, and Sao Paulo. Both Osaka and Tokyo are connected directly at far left, with four European cities: London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Manchester served non-stop at upper right.