Qantas: Sydney-Perth-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-Johannesburg

A delightful specimen from 1963, affixed with the postage of the Cook Islands. The pleasantly-hued map depicts the routing: Sydney-Perth-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-Johannesburg. Nowadays the route is non-stop from Sydney, and South African Airways still serves Perth from Jo'berg. Air Mauritius serves Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.

South African Airways: Worldwide, November 2009

This copper-and-chrome worldview shows the rainbow nation's reach via its flag carrier, with routes to North and South America, Australia, and Asia, as well as a dozen routes across its home continent.

British Airways: The African Routes, c.2000

A decade before Air France's map from yesterday is this classic BA map, with its signature "silk-web" route lines-- a typical throwback the company's heritage. Note the intra-South African flights, served by its affiliate Comair, as well as the now extinct Harare route, and the extension to Freetown.

Air France: The African Routes, July 2009

Air France and KLM, united as one company, dominate routes to Africa. Air France still serves nearly every former colonial capital, and KLM, an oil industry favorite, with strong East African services, overlays this network well. Taken with Skyteam's Kenya Airways affiliation, and the alliance is an African powerhouse (and a highly profitable venture).

Afriqiyah Airways Route Map, 2009

With the recent shocking tragedy of Afriqiyah 771 from Johannesburg, its timely to note this somewhat curious but fast-growing carrier, which unexpectedly emerged from the reclusive state and is well on its way to having a significant hub connecting Africa and Europe, often for prices far lower than the European carriers. In keeping with the Libyan government's fervent interest in—and frequent interference with—the West African region, the Afriqiyah venture was an attempt to solidify commercial links between Libya and the Saharan states, linking an array of francophone capitals such as Bangui, Cotonou, Lomé, N'Djamena, Niamey, and Ouagadougou that have traditionally only had long-haul links to Paris on Air France and Brussels on Sabena or Brussels Airlines. Afriqiyah serves those European cities as well, in addition to more secondary airports such as Geneva and Düsseldorf.

Interflug: Berlin-Freetown

Earlier than its 1972 celebration of jet service to West Africa is this November 1969 inaugural Freetown flight, although its not clear just what distinguishes the two events or what aircraft might have been in use, although with only the origin and destination listed, it suggests non-stop service. A handsome gazelle leaps gracefully across the cancellation stamp.

Interflug: Berlin-Singapore

Very late in its life, Interflug changed course radically, utilizing Western Airbus aircraft and stretching farther in search of relevance and revenue, such as this July 1989 launch to Singapore. Interflug would be liquidated by Lufthansa less than two years later. Apparently not enough East Berliners headed to Raffles.

The Inauguration of Ghana Airways, 1958

Ghana Airways had a long history following this cover issue, reaching as far as Baltimore-Washington with its DC-10s. Despite a heart-felt following, the airline ceased to operate some years ago. It is now followed by Ghana International Airlines, with B757 service to Düsseldorf and London-Gatwick routes. Although this envelope was addressed to the Ghana Philatelic Agency on Wall Street in New York, the inaugural flight was almost surely to Heathrow Airport.

Air India:Bombay to Seychelles, 1976

Celebrating inaugural of Air India's June 1976 service from Bombay to Seychelles with a mermaid/kama sutra-in-seashell theme.

Swissair: Zurich-Philadelphia, August 1990

Like many aspects of Philadelphia's recent history, its airport's prominence as an international gateway has had its ups and downs. Today it has myriad options thanks to USAirways, which covers nearly 20 destinations non-stop, from Barcelona to Tel Aviv. Planespotters would have been disappointed by last year's switch of the CDG run from Air France to Delta, leaving British Airways and Lufthansa as the only European carriers to serve the enormous terminal at Philly. Swissair's service to Zürich did not last the airline's turbulent demise and rebirth as SWISS, although Koten Airport is still connected to PHL as one of USAirway's non-stops.

Royal Air Maroc: Timetable, Winter/Spring 2010

This might well be called, "How Not to Publish a Timetable." Its not clear why these cities have been proposed for indexing. Might a RAM passenger from Milan be slightly more likely to need to find the schedule to Tangier or Fes, as opposed to Malabo or Nouakchott? The section for Monrovia does not even mention that the routing passes through Banjul, currently the only westbound flight from Liberia. Casablanca is mentioned only by its CMH code as the connecting point. Marrakesh is nowhere. Perhaps RAM is really pushing the African routes, which are excellent (see posts from the previous week), but this timetable's exclusions miss a lot of that carrier's offerings.

Royal Air Maroc; The African Routes, 2009

Two delightful, low-tech leaflets from RAM's office in midtown Manhattan, showing the breadth and frequency of the carrier's sub-Saharan connections, via Casablanca. With so few weekly services to most cities in West and Central Africa, these provide viable options, especially as they by-pass European hubs, and therefore can save time.

British Caledonian: Gatwick-Banjul-Monrovia, April 1982

More of Banjul: this might not look particularly relevant, but this is in fact the dinner menu on the Gatwick-Banjul-Monrovia flight from the evening of 10 April 1982. With typical BCal thoroughness, the folder including routing and aircraft information; sadly this is particular paper is not part of Timetablist's core collection, so further elaboration is not available here. It does however stand as an important document proving two of Timetablist's favorite topics: the erstwhile prominence of Robertsfield among European carriers, and the last few posts' celebrations of the similarly past glory of Banjul's international connections.

Air Gambia: Gatwick-Banjul-Freetown, Winter 1973

Bathurst and Banjul did not only see foreign carriers in their time. Here is a document (pulled from the Corona typewriter, perhaps?) showing Air Gambia's winter schedule to Gatwick Airport and onward to Freetown. Must have been marginally popular then, but hardly like the air bridge that exists today of Thomas Cook package tourists who make their winter holiday on Gambia's gorgeous beaches, which make the tiny slice of West Africa a little tourism success story. Air Gambia used a B707, which somewhat shockingly was seen at Gatwick as late as October 1993, but it didn't last.

Pan Am: Miami to Africa, 1941

More history of the Cape Verde coast as global node. This particular envelope from December 6, 1941, celebrates Pan Am's first arrival in Bathurst, Gambia (today Banjul). More broadly, the deep, dynamic illustration shows a flying boat clipper which originates at Miami and reaches the equator via San Juan and Port of Spain, calling at Belem and Natal in Brazil, before crossing the ocean and reaching Bathurst. From there it appears to extend to Lagos and on to Leopoldville. As with the previous post, Dakar did not get the glory.

Lufthansa: Stuttgart-Bathurst-Rio de Janeiro

Speaking of routes linking Europe and South America via the Cape Verde coast of Africa, here is a colorful artifact celebrating Lufthansa's long history of serving the German-speaking enclaves of South America ("since 1934") and the service linking Stuttgart and Rio de Janeiro with a stop in Bathurst, Gambia (now Banjul), in November 1970--showing it isn't Dakar who gets all the action. Despite the maps and imagery, the envelope lacks the usual Lufthansa details such as aircraft type and flight number.

Virgin Nigeria Network: July, 2009

Virgin Nigeria is slowly being rebranded as Nigeria Eagle Airlines, as Sir Richard has apparently had enough of doing business in Nigeria. Can't blame him for giving it a go and sticking with it, though. Its not that bad, either: new planes, relatively low fares (by African standards, anyway). It didn't ever sustain its ambitious plans, however, as this route map, from one of its last published in-flight magazines, shows. The London and Johannesburg flights were a bit erratic, its reported. Timetablist can also confirm that Virgin Atlantic itself was sometimes seen landing in Nigeria: Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt, if mental archives are reliable...

The other page from the route map is totally irrelevant as truth but a ponderous exercise in wishful thinking. VK never made it across the Atlantic, despite the abundant traffic between New York, Houston, Washington and Nigeria. Another Nigerian line, Arik Air, has quietly inaugurated a JFK service, which seems to be doing well despite the recent added security to Nigerian air travelers.

Turkish Airlines: Istanbul-Dakar-Sao Paulo, July 2009

This is a new format for Timetablist: a cellphone camera shot of the departures board of Yoff International Airport in Dakar, Senegal (taken at the ungodly hour of 2:52am! Why are West African flights all in the middle of the night? Really, would someone please leave a comment explaining this...)

This particular screen shows several recent developments, among them Dakar's importance in its flights to the US, Delta's presence in Africa, but Timetablist's favorite route in the world right now has to be Turkish Airlines's A340 service from Istanbul to São Paulo-Guarulhos via Dakar. How a Turkish carrier is connecting Brazil and Africa is a story of our global age, and the news of its launch was bewildering and exciting when annouced last year, and it is sad but unsurprising to hear that it is ending in next month. The Dakar-South America connection has historically not been an uncommon one, but is fun and unique nowadays. (NB: Timetablist was waiting to board the 03:40 for Accra, in which it was decided to serve a full dinner at 4:30 in the morning.)

SAS: the Transatlantic Routes, 2006

A more colorful atlas-style polar projection showing SAS's routes from 2006, compared with its silver-and-clay color scheme from 2003 (yesterday's post). Its old territory of West Africa beckons from the bottom of the page, only Cairo is reached on the continent.

SAS: Map of the Long-Haul Routes, 2003

,Scandinavian Airlines System's contemporary operations focus on two long-distance markets: Asia and the United States. The US side has increasingly been aligned with United Air Lines's feeder system from its hubs (in the 1980s the alliance was with Continental's base at Newark), as well as a reliance on ethno-cultural links to Scandinavian communities in the United States, such as the Upper Midwest. Chicago O'Hare's links to both Copenhagen and Stockholm can be understood in this context, as certainly Seattle should be seen, beyond the usual link between major advanced economies.

SAS, like Finnair, has also been seeking advantage of the polar-orientations of Europe-to-North Asia routes, with some success. Other than that, SAS is limited to the European area (see yesterday's post for an exhibit of how far the system's reach used to be). Its mournful that SAS no longer lands at Seattle-Tacoma.

The copper monochrome of this polar projection is interesting, as is the inclusion of the moon for added extraterrestrial effect.