Arik Air: The Domestic Services, c.2009

A crude, sharply-angled paint-graphic file, showing a young Arik Air's domestic network sometime in or around 2009, via this website. Nigeria's shape is approximated in a crude, ivory cut-out, overlapping the surrounding landmass, with pixelated borders, routes and labels.

The already fast-growing Nigerian carrier linked Lagos to 8 cities, with extra connections between the Federal capital, Abuja, and the important oil ports of the southern Delta, Port Harcourt (misspelled above) and Calabar.

A more recent and much slicker cartography is displayed on Arik's own website (posted recently here), which shows a wider network domestically--but still almost entirely centered around Lagos and Abuja, although the airline now stretches from New York to Johannesburg.

Air Zimbabwe: The Worldwide Network, c.2006

Via the Travel House UK website comes this undated, computer-generated artifact. Only Africa is shown (and its unclear why the map of Zimbabwe is repeated at left), with red arrows angling out to destinations in Asia and the UK.

Of uncertain vitage, it can be at least cross-referenced with the Timetable Image's archive of the March-October 2006 AirZim schedule, which included once-weekly Dubai-Lubumbashi-Harare and Harare-Singapore-Beijing jaunts (using the same ageing B767 that also reached Gatwick). The B737 reached as far as Mauritius. All but Beijing and London are today erstwhile, as Air Zimbabwe continues to suffer, its zigzag-striped Boeings as pariah as the regime that owns it.

The latest news out this month is a bizarre report that the strike-ridden, cash-strapped, trade-embargoed airline will be acquiring new Airbus jets. This just weeks after pilots refused to operate the current, ancient fleet until they were paid back wages, and amid talk of a need for either a government bailout, privatization, or liquidation.

Now Arriving

Timetablist has returned, via (New York-JFK), (Providence), Boston, Amsterdam, (Frankfurt), (Nuremberg), Munich, Malta, Munich, (Cologne), (Amsterdam), (Brussels), Paris-CDG, Conakry, and Monrovia-Robertsfield. Posting to resume worthwith.

Summer Hiatus

Timetablist will be on a summer hiatus during parts of July and August. Instead of just admiring airline airline schedules, timetables and route maps will actually be used to plan travel and board airplanes, for a change. Thank you to everyone who visits for your interest, attention, and support. Timetablist will be resuming soon. Best wishes for an exciting summer.

Swissair: Zürich-Geneva-Lagos-Accra, 1974

Two first-day covers which differ only slightly, having identical layouts, graphics, and cancellation stamps, but seeming to emphasize slightly different portions of the same route, Swissair's new service from Zürich to Geneva, connecting Switzerland to Lagos and finally Accra.

The first envelope celebrates the Genève - Accra service, the second Genève - Lagos, with the description to the right of the profiled antelope giving no mention to Accra.

Swissair's 21st century successor, Swiss International Air Lines, flew to Accra for a time, but currently does not serve West Africa at all.

Libyan Arab Airlines Network, 2007

The much older, but now lesser-known of Libya's two state carriers, Libyan Arab Airlines has in recent years been eclipsed by Afriqiyah Airways, to the point that consolidation of the standard-bearer into the start-up was announced last fall. The two operate under one state holding company.

 

LAA's golden-trimmed jets continued to cover the region, especially North Africa and a handful of regional routes from bases at both Tripoli and Benghazi. It is not surprising that major European hubs such sa Frankfurt, London, Rome and Milan have long been served; Kiev is surely more curious. 

In previous years, LAA has reached further into Europe to cities including Amsterdam, Moscow, and Paris, in 2009 expansion to reach Niamey and Khartoum in the south and China on the other side of the globe was announced, but not acted upon—service south of the Sahara has been the mandate of sister carrier Afriqiyah Airways.

At present, there is no commercial air service out of Libya.

Special thanks to the perhaps-defunct Airliner Dude blog for the original article.

Air Jamaica Network, September 1972

A groovy brochure from a young Air Jamaica, boasting of its citrus-colored super DC-8 quadjet daily runs to sun-kissed Montego Bay from New York-JFK, Chicago via Nassau, and Toronto via [sunny] Philadelphia (the brochure says between the last two--not clear if such an itinerary could be purchased). All Caribbean-bound first class passengers enjoyed a shag and patent-leather stand-up bar-- an island party in the stratosphere.

The DC-9 evidently ran the daily to Miami, and the lone domestic route to the capital, Kingston. Cake and soft drinks, horseback riding and sport fishing, waterfalls and bass players--these were just a overview of the joys on offer in sunny Jamaica--but flying with Air Jamaica means the vacation of a lifetime begins the moment a passenger stepped on board. Services as far as Los Angeles and London were still a decade or more away.

Air France: Paris-Conakry-Freetown-Monrovia, Spring 2011

Air France, like many European airlines, has been expanding its highly-profitable African services over the last few years. Its move earlier this year to extend its Paris-Conakry service to both Freetown and Monrovia on alternate days is somewhat unusual, as it crosses over the Francophone-Anglophone divide, which checkerboards West Africa, with very few flights in between countries that speak different languages.

Although seats are sold only on the intra-African leg, the tickets are hugely expensive, in fact more costly than a flight from the United States to these destinations via Paris.

Air France served Monrovia's Robertsfield decades before, but not any time recently, although its subsidiary KLM was a major connector to Liberia up until that country's civil war. This may be Air France's first time serving Sierra Leone.

Slok Air: Destinations from Monrovia, c.2008

Slok Air International, the erstwhile Gambian carrier, flew 737-200s trimmed in a pistachio-and-cantelope color scheme up and down the west African coast, until its demise sometime in 2008. Here is the masthead above its ticket office at Roberts International Airport, outside of Monrovia, Liberia, in October 2008, just after its final liquidation. Its not possible to verify whether Slok served all of the cities listed here; certainly Monrovia was not connected by all these cities.

Elysian Airlines: Routes from Monrovia, c.2009

Cameroon-based Elysian Airlines, "the African Dream," built up an impressive base of operations from Monrovia's secondary Spriggs-Payne Airport, going up the coast Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gambia, and apparently Senegal, as well as operating the country's lone domestic route, down to Harper, Maryland County.

Sadly, Elysian withdrew from its Spriggs-Payne services in mid-2010, but these were later replaced by Lomé-based ASKY Airlines as well as the new Sierra Leonian carrier, Fly 6ix.

Arik Air: The Domestic Network from Lagos, 2011

In addition to its strong base at the Federal Capital, Abuja, in the center of the country, Arik Air focuses heavily on the country's megacity, the erstwhile capital, Lagos, on the coast.

Routes here connect more to the oil-heavy Delta region in the southeast, than to the northern portion of the country. Not shown here, Arik flies regionally as far as Dakar and also links Lagos to Johannesburg, London, and New York.

Arik Air: The Domestic Network from Abuja, 2011

In the aftermath of the collapse of first Nigeria Airways in 2003, then beloved Bellview in 2009, followed by the tortuous decline of Virgin Nigeria's once-grand plans for global presence, which underwent a confused transition to Nigeria Eagle Airlines and finally to the muted but still-competent Air Nigeria, Africa's most populous country seemed to lack a flag carrier.

But lately and quickly, that position has been taken on by the young Arik Air, which in a few years of operation has achieved what Virgin Nigeria once dreamed of: non-stop flights to the trifecta of premier destinations: New York, London and Johannesburg, which have been operated heretofore by A340-500s wet-leased from a Portuguese vendor.

The latest achievement is the news this week was that Arik has been granted FAA approval to fly its own, Nigerian-registered aircraft into the United States-- the first Nigerian airline in decades to enjoy this privilege.

Beyond its global ambitions, Arik has a strong domestic presence, shown in this and the following post, with two bases: one at the Federal Capital, Abuja, shown with the white aircraft hovering over a blue map, above, and the other at Murtala Mohammed Airport at Lagos, shown in the next entry.

Air Uganda Schedule, 2011

A snapshot of Air Uganda's online schedule from the summer of 2011, showing its weekly runs between Entebbe and Dar Es Salaam, Kigali, Juba and Nairobi. According to Wikipedia, Air Uganda also reaches Zanzibar and Mombasa, but these schedules are not online.

It is particularly informative to have the standard fares set right into the matrix, with Dar Es Salaam on special for only US$199.

British Caledonian: The Intercontinental Routes, 1977 Detail # 2: South American Services

Long-haul operations British Caledonian concerned both Africa and South America. Services to both continents are grouped regionally-- a non-stop flight to Caracas also links Lima and Bogota. Service to Brazil, Argentina and Chile is routed via either Recife or Rio de Janeiro.

Other than the previously-posted non-stop from Gatwick to Recife, service to Brazil and the rest of the cone also stops in either Lisbon or Madrid before crossing the Atlantic, catching critical cultural, political and economic connections between the Iberian peninsula and its erstwhile colonies across Latin America.

See the previous post for discussion of the routes to Africa on the map. Thank you to the fantastic Airline Memorabilia blog for the privileges of reposting.

British Caledonian: The Intercontinental Routes, 1977

Reprinted with kind permission from the wonderful Airline Memorabilia blog is the inside jacket cover of a British Caledonian timetable, showing the airline's intercontinental services at the height of the airline's reach.

A dozen routes shower out from London (Gatwick) to South America and Africa, with service across the Canary Islands and North Africa.

In West Africa, Dakar, Banjul, Freetown and Monrovia (previously posted on Timetablist) are interwoven, with the cooperative operations of Sierra Leone Airways from Gatwick to Robertsfield via Lungi also shown. Accra, Lagos and Kano form another subgroup.

Central and Southern Africa are only sparsely served in a triangulated service linking Kinshasa and Lusaka, with a connecting service to the Zambian copperbelt capital of Ndola. Presumably, British Airways had rights that dominated East and Southern Africa, from Kenya to yet-to-be independent Rhodesia.

The next post will cover the South American services of the same map. Thanks again to Airline Memorabilia for the privileges.

Air Namibia: Cape Town to Walvis Bay, 1994

A multicolored first-day envelope marking the launch of SW741, Air Namibia's first direct flight from Walvis Bay, the principal port of the Skeleton Coast to Cape Town in nearby South Africa. The service by the young Air Namibia, flag carrier of a country that had only voted for independence three years prior, but had only taken control of the exclave of Walvis Bay a matter of weeks before this B737 took the skies.

The envelope is dominated by Air Namibia's crane-silhouette logo (which is repeated on the air mail mark above), above which is a delightful South African postage, reprinting a woodcut of colonial Walvis Bay from 1878.

Air France: Kuala Lumpur-Colombo-Bahrain aboard the Concorde, 1976

A special envelope, largely taken up with a map explaining the route of an Air France Concorde in April 1976 from Kuala Lumpur to Bahrain, seemingly via Colombo, Sri Lanka.

It appears that the supersonic bird had to carefully bend its route around Sumatra, the Indian Subcontinent, and Oman, but may have been able to cross the Emirates at Dubai.

KLM: The African Network, 1966

A very detailed map of KLM's African routes in 1966, showing the particulars of its network, with numbers referencing a corresponding timetable page.

The Royal Dutch routes were thinner many decades ago than it is today, with only eight cities south of the Sahara, and the most activity along the West African coast between Conakry and Lagos.

Particularly enlightening are the southern European stop-over points: Zürich, Rome, Madrid, Las Palmas, and Tunis. Cairo, connected to Amsterdam by a number of European cities, served as a gateway to the Asia and Australia.

A single trans-African route flew from Rome-Kano-Brazzaville-Johannesburg, which has been featured on Timetablist previously.

Air Austral Network, 2011

Air Austral, the airline of the Indian Ocean island département of Reunion, operates a network reminiscent of UTA French Airlines of an earlier era, with globe-spanning services touching four continents.

Air Austral connects distant New Caledonia and the francophone Indian Ocean, both Reunion and the recently-referendumed overseas département of Mayotte, as well as the independent nations of Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Comoros, and Madagascar. A web of long spans connect the airport at St. Denis with the six largest cities of the metropole. A new route from Mayotte to Paris is the airline's latest development. The airline also serves Sydney, Bangkok and Johannesburg.

Air Austral may be a small airline, but its ultra-long haul operations have big needs: it is one of the premier customer for an all-economy class Airbus A380. In 2014, it will begin packing the superjumbo full of more than 800 holiday-makers on half-day long flights heading for the resorts of the Equatorial oceans.

Balkan Bulgarian Airlines: Harare-Sofia Boarding Pass, 1991

Perhaps one of more unusual routes in history, the state carrier of Bulgaria served the capital of Zimbabwe for some period of time, as evidenced by this boarding pass with Zimbabwe government departure tax paid in 1991-- the same year that the Soviet Union would collapse to great tumult to both southeast Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Bulgaria was also in transition to free-market, multiparty democracy, a tumultuous period that would contribute to Balkan's demise in 2002. Zimbabwe was on the cusp of a long-term decline from African breadbasket to African basketcase. The Sofia-Harare shuttle was short-lived.