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 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. 

Singapore Airlines and Silk Air: Discover the Splendors of China, 2011

A print and online advertisement for Singapore Airlines flight deals to China via this website. SIA serves a number of mainland cities, and its little sister, SilkAir, serves even more. In the case of Shenzhen, Singapore Airlines actually withdrew its mainline services after a foray in 2005-06, and instead SilkAir now serves the city. The advertisements list both airlines but don't specify which airline's metal lands at which city.

Kunming Airlines Routes, 2011-12

Two web-ads promoting the destinations of Kunming Airlines, a small, young Chinese airline, from its un-Romanized website. One advertisement uses the old roadside directional-signs-on pole image to note the cities, while the other seems to have devolved from an archaic compass-and-parchment map idea to then be overlaid with warped jpgs of the cities in question.

Both advertisements boast the same three flight schedules: Kunming-Changzhou (常州) -Dalian; a second, zigzagging route from Kunming to Chongqing and then Taizhou (台州) in Zhejiang Province; and thirdly a north-south Kunming-Changsha-Shijiazhuang line.

The airline's Wikipedia article lists a different roster of routes, but that is probably out of date, having been last updated in 2009. Commercial aviation in China is growing rapidly, and little Kunming airlines has only been in existence since 2005. Kunming Airlines's home page offers fares on flights to Xiamen, Guiyang, Harbin, Shenzhen, Qingdao, and Nanning as well as other cities across central China.

Tianjin Airlines: The Southern Destinations, 2012

Continuing from the previous post, a detail of Tianjin Airlines's English-language website route map, showing the southern portion of the airlines array of destinations. Despite being a northerly airline, the airline has a strong presence in China's south, from Hainan Island to the mouth of the Yangtze Delta region. Like a classroom map, each province is depicted by one of four light shades, which includes Taiwan, although Taipei is not served.

Shandong Airlines: The Southern Destinations, 2012

Although named for, and based in, a northern province, Shandong Airlines serves most of the major cities of China's south and southwest, from the Cantonese capitals of Guangzhou and Shenzhen to the several massive cities in the Shanghai region, to Sanya on Hainan Island, Sichuan, and even Lhasa in Tibet. A few of the destination dots here are unlabeled. Taipei in Taiwan is also served.

Chengdu Airlines Network, Winter 2011-12

Today, China has such a great many airlines, many named solely after a certain large city. Although the massive province of Sichuan has its own Sichuan Airlines, its capital, colossal Chengdu, also has its own namesake carrier, 成都航空有限公司.

Chengdu Airlines most-recent route map from its website is shown above. The landmass of the People's Republic is made of cloud, a lovely detail, over which is laid the sizable network of the regional carrier, which seems to be expanding rapidly, as its Wikipedia article, updated only a year ago, shows only 15 destinations.

For the English-speaker, the network is still a bit mysterious, as only the Chinese characters are used to label the destinations. Thanks to Google Translate, we can establish many of the principal airports that Chengdu Airlines flies to:

北京 Beijing 宁波 Ningbo

长沙 Changsha 上海 Shanghai

成都 Chengdu 阳 Shenyang

重庆 Chongqing 深圳 Shenzhen

大连 Dalian 石家庄 Shijiazhuang

福州 Fuzhou 乌鲁木齐 Urumqi

广州 Guangzhou 武汉 Wuhan

杭州 Hangzhou 西安 Xi'an

昆明 Kunming 厦门 Xiamen

南京 Nanjing

The great number of routes out of Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport itself (成都) are clear, and the hub is marked by the tailfin emblazoned with the company's logo. Further east, the airline appears to have a focal point at Changsha (长沙) and a serves many coastal cities in the massive Shanghai megalopolis: beyond Hongqiao airport, Nanjing (南京), Ningbo (宁波) and Hangzhou (杭州) are also shown here.

Farther north, the great Capital Airport at Beijing (北京) is represented by a diminutive star, with only a single route connecting it. As far as Chengdu Airlines own network is concerned, the northern focus city is apparently Shijiazhuang (石家庄 ), in Hebei province, southwest of Beijing.

The huge factory of the country, in Guangdong province, is underserved, with only a few routes connecting Guangzhou (广州) and Shenzhen (深圳). In the northwest, a pair of long routes land at the capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi (乌鲁木齐).

Amsterdam Schiphol: Arrivals Board at 15:30, July 2011

A busy evening at one of Europe's superhubs. The fifteen minutes from 6:30pm commences with two of KLM's non-stops from China, one from Sichuan's capital at Chengdu and one from coastal Xiamen. Over the next five minutes, a flock of flights arrives from the corners of Europe: Easyjet from Prague, Alitalia from Milan, and Lufthansa from Munich. A Transavia flight from Lisbon is followed by an airBaltic Riga arrival.

At 40 minutes past the hour, another of KLM's increasing services to East Asia, this a link to its SkyTeam Partner Korean Air's megahub at Incheon, lands concurrently with more regional, low-cost services from Spain and Britain: An Arkefly charter from Mahon, Easyjet from Gatwick and BMI Baby from Nottingham. At quarter til 7, two Air France/KLM code shares get in from Bergen and Berlin.

This brief quarter hour demonstrates the breadth and diversity of Schiphol's connections.

Korean Air: Chinese Destinations, 2011

China has been a major growth market for global aviation, and Korean Air has successfully marketed its new hub at Incheon as a convenient connection to the mainland, with hundreds of flights each week to more than a dozen destinations. See other posts from today for domestic and Japanese networks.