Air Congo: Jet Service a Republique du Rwanda

A vintage poster celebrating Air Congo (a Sabena-backed entity) whose four-engined jets soared southward from Europe to Rwanda.

KLM: Amsterdam-Chicago

The inaugural Chicago-to-Amsterdam flight of KLM, showing the outline of the B747 which is still used on the route today.

SAS: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c.1960

Scandinavian Airline System offered Boeing jet services from Bangkok, with Polar Routes from Tokyo to Europe and from Europe to Los Angeles; SAS's worldwide network was reached with 4-times weekly connections from Kuala Lumpur on Thai Airways DC-6B cooperative services, which also linked regional cities from Djakarta to Phnom Penh.

Cathay Pacific Airways: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

A much smaller carrier half a century ago, the green-stripped constellations of Cathay Pacific Airways spanned from India to Japan. It would be twenty years before the airline would acquire its first 747 and a quarter-century before the airline would cross the Pacific. Jesselton is now known as Kota Kinabalu.

KLM: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

KLM Royal Dutch Air Lines fleet of shiny DC-8 jetliners whisked travelers from Kuala Lumpur east to Manila, north to Beirut and Athens, west to Houston and Mexico City.

JAL: Destinations from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960

A listing of Japan Air Lines connections from Kuala Lumpur, c. 1960, with office address and telephone number.

British Airways, Latin America & the Caribbean, 1999

Other than its small colonial outposts, which lie within the Caribbean basin between Belize, the Bahamas and Barbados, the United Kingdom has little historic connection to Middle and South America. However, British Airways flies to several Latin cities for petroleum and financial connections, as this bland, newspaper photo-copy quality destination map from 1999 shows.

Air New Zealand: Pacific System, c. 1972

Air New Zealand was decades away from boasting of a world-leading premium cabin as it is today, but can still pride itself in serving the South Pacific better than nearly any carrier, linking Los Angeles and Honolulu to Fiji and Auckland, and offering a non-stop Tahiti service from LAX, too. Today, Air New Zealand links Los Angeles to London Heathrow as well.

Fly Garuda's New Electra, c.1960

A youthful Garuda boasted that its new Electra craft could propel Singaporeans as far as Manila, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Malayan Airways c.1960

An attractive greyscale announcement of an adolescent Malayan Airways tiger lines, which at the time extended only as far as Hong Kong, direct with its jet-prop Bristol Britannia (and supercool frill typeface). Decades later Malaysia would crest as one the world's largest carriers, with services like KL-Dubai-Newark and KL-Johannesburg-Cape Town-Buenos Aires.

Czechoslovak Airlines: Service from Cairo, c.1958

An advert from a trade publication for the shipping industry of Cairo, sometime in the late 1950s, showing what was surely the pride of the Czechoslovak fleet: a Soviet-era Tu-104 jet, able to whisk Egyptians either north to the capitals of Europe via Prague: London, Paris, Moscow, or on a trans-Asian route: Dhahran—Bombay—Rangoon—Phnom Penh—Djakarta (none of which Czech Airlines serves today).

ASKY Airlines network, October 2010

Fast-growing regional carrier ASKY Airlines is based (somewhat surprisingly) in Lomé, Togo. The subsidiary of also-burgeoning Ethiopian Airlines has already established itself as a major West African airline, with useful connections within and between both Anglophone and Francophone cities.

Air France/KLM: African Network, Winter 2010/11: Codeshare destinations

Selected destinations served by Sky-team partner Kenya Airways in code-share are shown in red. Nairobi has become a significant hub for the alliance.

Air France/KLM: African Network, Winter 2010/11: Gulf of Guinea detail

The Air France-KLM's network in the Gulf of Guinea, serving every capital and major city from Abidjan to Luanda, is impressively dense and frequent.

Air France/KLM: Winter 2010/11

Air France-KLM's website currently features this extremely thoughtful network map for Sub-tropical Africa, with each city labelled with weekly frequencies, designated by carrier and hub. The otherwise-lucid graphic is a bit confusing, in that it includes only Libya among North African states, and even more confusingly does not include Djibouti or Madagascar--yet Air France is one of the few carriers to serve Antananarivo and Djibouti.

Air India: Worldwide, December 2006

A colorful but confusing route map from Air India. Air India's global network is complicated enough, with its "scissors hubs", necessary due to the distance between North America and the sub-continent, routing passengers via London and Frankfurt. The use of red lines for the code-share services is somewhat obfuscating, making the network seem larger and more global than it is, as the eye naturally focuses on the brighter colors.

Comparing to the previous post, there is a general, though not extensive, expansion to East Asia. several cities in Europe are served; East Africa is part of the network. More cities in the United States are connected. What is most surprisingly is the total retreat from the Gulf region; only Dubai is served between the Mediterranean and the hub at Mumbau.

Air India, worldwide network, c.1960

Via either Comet or Boeing 707 to five continents, from the Statue of Liberty to the wildlife of East Africa, the beefeaters of Buckingham to the geishas of the Ginza. Note the dense intra-European network.

Pan Am: New York-Kano, 1956

Kano has been discussed before. Its interesting as it is still a large and important city, the principal commercial center and airport in Northern Nigeria, but its international services have declined (partly due to the rise of Abuja to the south). KLM, MEA, and Saudi Arabian apparently still fly there. According to this first day cover, Pan Am connected Kano with New York in 1956, although this service did not seem to last long.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky: The international non-stops, Winter/Spring 2005

Five Years ago, Cincinnati was connected with four European capitals daily: London (Gatwick), Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, all by Delta Air Lines, which once operated one its largest hubs from the banks of the Ohio River.  Pre-SkyTeam Partner airline Air France often landed from CDG itself. In addition, Delta landed in Northern Kentucky from Cancun, Nassau, Montreal, and Toronto.

Today, only the Paris connection remains, although Cincinnati continues to be painfully squeezed between Delta's massive hubs in Atlanta and Detroit, as well as Memphis, also under pressure to shrink, and Minneapolis (the latter three inherited from Northwest). Meanwhile, Delta launched seasonal service from Pittsburgh to Paris, which continues to operate in the summer season, usually with a B757.

BOAC: Worldwide Routes, 1962

Showing some unusual destinations, such as Brazzaville, Kano, Dakar and Windhoek that are no longer served by successor British Airways.