Lufthansa: Entebbe-Munich

This busy and beautiful first-day cover is interesting in that it is addressed from the destination (Entebbe) to the origin (Munich). Typically German, with loads of information, including flight numbers but not mentioning aircraft type, the first flight of the Munich-Cairo-Khartoum-Entebbe-Dar Es Salaam service launched on 5 April 1968.

Lufthansa: Frankfurt-Entebbe-Dar Es Salaam

. Interesting to compare this 1966 cover to the 1968 Entebbe-Munich envelope. Its pretty incredible to think that so many passengers were traveling from Germany to East Africa that they could choose from both Frankfurt or Munich. Unfortunately, this era didn't last, as Lufthansa doesn't even serve Nairobi with passenger flights today.

Lufthansa: Nairobi-Harare

A classic first-day cover for Lufthansa, showing a B707 service between Salisbury (Harare) and Frankfurt on 4 May, 1981.
An older first-day cover from 1962, detailing the route from Frankfurt to Nairobi via Athens and Khartoum, and onward to Johannesburg.
A typically-detailed Lufthansa first day cover, showing inaugural A300 service between Nairobi and Harare in 1989. Neither city is currently served by Lufthansa. Its not clear if this celebrates an extension of a service from Frankfurt, and whether passengers could purchase just the NBO-Harare leg.

Kenya Airways: The African Network, mid-2009

Kenya Airways has positioned itself as the pan-African carrier, with a brand-new fleet connecting West, Central, and Southern Africa from its stronghold in East Africa, based in Nairobi. By 2008, the airline maintained several European routes, as well as connections to Dubai, Mumbai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, showing the importance of China's connection to Africa. Kenya continues to fill in its African system, recently adding Libreville, Brazzaville, and Antananarivo.

Iberia Airlines Worldwide, 1988

This fanciful advert, utilizing Iberia's orange-yellow scheme to entice tourists to its sunny destinations, which at the time appeared to include Malabo, Abidjan, Nouakchott, Lagos, Dakar, and Cairo. Unfortunately, the Nouakchott and Abidjan routes did not last, and neither did the Canadian connections, somewhat surprisingly.

Aerolot: The European Destinations, 2005/06

Aeroflot remained much stronger on the European continent, with a number of Eastern European destinations that reflect Moscow's former stature. The map also shows a number of domestic destinations in European Russia.

Aeroflot Worldwide 2005-6

This, when juxtaposed with yesterday's posts, shows the incredible erosion of Aeroflot's once-vast global network. Only Luanda remains among its formerly plentiful African stations. South America has no service, and gone are Mexico City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Miami.

Elsewhere, the airline's reach is equally deteriorated: yesterday's Singapore, Shenyang, Harbin, Karachi, Calcutta, Kuala Lumpur and Colombo and the Kazakh capital are gone.

The next post will show what's left of Aeroflot's European operations.

Aeroflot Worldwide Destinations, 1999: East

The Asia-Pacific destinations of Aeroflot in 1999, which were a great array, from Shenyang and Seoul to Singapore to Sharjah. Note that Bombay is Mumbai but Calcutta's name has not changed. The great many Siberian cities are not listed here, and the lack of route lines on the map leave the viewer to guess which of these many Russian cities had international services.

Aeroflot Worldwide Destinations, 1999

The left-hand page of an Aeroflot timetable from the centerpiece of a 1999 timetable shows the state carrier in a transitional stage from its Soviet postings. Pre-oligarch Aeroflot?

A number of cities are still shown, where Aeroflot is today absent, including such African destinations as Accra, Conakry, Cotonou, Nairobi and Dakar, where today only Luanda remains on Aeroflot's African schedule.

Also here then and gone now are Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami; its somewhat incredible to believe that so many US Cities were ever connected to Moscow, especially in its pre-BRIC state. Also in the Americas, Lima, Mexico City and Sao Paulo are no more; only Havana still sees planes from Sheremetyevo.

Pan Am: New York-Monrovia (Cargo)

While this site is mainly concerned with passenger service, a higher priority is service to Monrovia. This envelope follows the format of Pan Am's other first day covers, with the outline map in the lower-left corner, showing a jet connecting New York and Monrovia on April 30, 1963.

Pan Am: New York-Monrovia

A set of Liberian stamps celebrating service between Monrovia-Robertsfield and New York's Idlewilde Airport. Not entirely sure if this is a "first day cover" of the service; the image is small and difficult to read, but its at least visible as a Pan Am clipper. The service would run along various routes until about 1986, with Pan Am withdrew from Africa entirely.

Pan Am: New York-Conakry

A nice pair, one first-day cover from the US, showing Pan American's map emblem on the envelope, which seemed to be a recurring first-day cover theme. The other is a handsome pair of Guinean Stamps, with a beautiful, colorful illustration of Pan Am's DC-6 gracefully hugging the African coast on 30 July 1963. The Pan Am cover helpfully points out that the service was routed via Lisbon, as the majority of Pan Am's African routes were prior to the jet age.

Pan Am: New York-Entebbe

Could it be that Pan Am's flights from New York to Entebbe were really "direct", as in non-stop? It doesn't seem likely, as even as late as the 1980s, when Pan Am had all jet-service around the world, its African flights stopped in Dakar and Monrovia first. However, if the graphic emblem is to be believed, the 1966 service did utilize a B707.

Time Magazine: New Routes, April 2007

World aviation was burgeoning so quickly, and reflecting globalization's new realities, that Time Magazine featured a few in April 2007. Two are for Emirates: to Houston and Sao Paulo, one was Austrian's service to Erbil, one was from Greenland to Baltimore, and finally Iran Air from Tehran to Caracas.

Swissair: Geneva-Dakar-Bamako (with Sabena)

A much more recent first-day cover than most of the rest of the collection, this 1996 first-day cover from Swissair's launch, in cooperation with Sabena, of Geneva-Dakar-Bamako service. The route didn't last long, as both airlines ignominiously shut down in 2001, and Swiss International Air Lines has not returned to Dakar (although Brussels Airlines continues to serve Senegal from Belgium).

Syrianair Network c. 2005-6: Detail of Mediterranean, Mid-East and Gulf Destinations

The jagged lines of Syrianair's network ricochet across its home region, especially the Gulf, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.

SAS: Copenhagen/Stockolm-Zurich-Monrovia

This is a fascinating group of first-day covers, celebrating the launch of DC-8 service to Monrovia by Scandinavian Air Service in 1960. The route seemed to assemble passengers from SAS's Nordic hubs at Zurich, and from there fly to Liberia-- one envelope declares the service to be "direct" so perhaps this leg was non-stop. SAS today has no African routes.

Northwest, the Polar Routes, c. 1954

Polar Projected Maps are somehow alluringly dynamic, especially when spanned by the daring navigations of the pioneering airlines of the post-war era. In this category, none is a better example than Northwest Orient, a carrier which early on challenged the limits of American intercontinental contact with an intrepidation rivaled only by the exotic ports of Pan Am.

Northwest has stayed true to its patron cities, as forty and fifty years on, NWA is still strong in Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle, Milwaukee, and keeps its mighty Pacific hub at Tokyo (although now out at Narita, when at the time it was at Haneda).

The above Asiatic route crests at Anchorage, and with seemingly-necessary stops at the tiny, frigid island airstrips at Shemya and Chitose, before plunging down the rim of the Pacific to arrive at Tokyo, with an onward network spanning to Okinawa, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Manila.

Northwest has a rich and proud history, which somewhat sadly is in the process of being painted over in Delta's livery, which swallowed NWA for its strong Asian presence, particularly its Tokyo hub.

Syrianair Network: c. 2005-6

This somewhat over-designed refraction is Syrianair's network route map, c. 2005/6, showing a strong Mid-East and North African network, and plenty of European routes. The black routes come out of Damascus, extending to Manchester and Casablanca, whereas red routes seem to emanate from Aleppo, connecting as far as Stockholm, which, like Paris, is badly out of place. Even with the lazy labeling by three-letter codes, Barcelona is unmarked.

The destinations in the central circle will be detailed in the next post.

SAS: Vienna-Nairobi-Johannesburg

Another artifact bearing witness to SAS's once extensive African presence. Its difficult to make out the date, but it seems this Vienna-Nairobi-Johannesburg route was launched on 15 December 1976 (or 78?) with a DC-10. Similar to its Monrovia service via Zurich, SAS seemed to collect its passengers from its various Nordic hubs (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo) to a more central European airport, in this case Vienna, and from then southward toward Africa. SAS does not presently serve any African destinations.