Sierra Leone Airlines over Freetown, 1987

Sierra Leone Airlines over Freetown, 1987

Thursday's post detailed the launch of Sierra Leone's new carrier, concurrent with the 50th anniversary of the country's independence. In honor of another jubilee, in this case the 40th Anniversary of the International Civil Aviation Organization in 1987, the Republic of Sierra Leone issued this commemorative stamp. The horizon line demarcating the dull-blue, rainy season sky and a calm Atlantic is nearly imperceptible. The foreground shows a wide, intricately detailed view of the rooftops of Freetown. Sierra Leone Airlines' flagship B707-384C with its landing gear flared for landing at Lungi International across the bay, surrounded by the stamp's perforation.

Courtesy: TimeTablist

UTA French Airlines: Central & Southern Africa Destinations

UTA French Airlines: Central & Southern Africa Destinations

Another detail from UTA's worldwide map from 1989, part of Flickr user caribb's collection. Even thought France didn't have any colonies in the southern half of the continent, and there isn't a francophone city between Kinshasa and Antananarivo, UTA flew to a number of southern African capitals where no French airline flies today. Libreville, Brazzaville, Kinshasa are no surprise (and are still connected to Paris), and Luanda and Johannesburg have economic reasons for still being served from CDG, but anglophone Lilongwe, Lusaka, Gaborone, Windhoek and lusophone Maputo are surprising. 

Courtesy: The Timetablist blog

UTA French Airlines: Worldwide Network, 1989 Detail 1: The African Network

UTA French Airlines: Worldwide Network, 1989 Detail 1: The African Network

A detail from the previous post, from Flickr user caribb's collection, showing the huge number of African destinations, which Air France didn't bother with.

Courtesy: The Timetablist

Swissair: Zurich-Kinshasa, 1973

Swissair: Zurich-Kinshasa, 1973

Swissair always had extensive routes across Africa. This envelope, although certainly commemorative, does not indicate whether this date was particularly important for the route to Zaïre, which is helpfully outlined on the map.

Courtesy: Timetablist

Air Gabon: Systemwide Timetable, 1990

Air Gabon: Systemwide Timetable, 1990

Air Gabon is another carrier that has recently seen extensive attention on timetablist, only to be have this further article, a delightful sample from Flickr user caribb's amazing collection, illuminate its history further. This schedule shows, in excellent detail, Air Gabon's systemwide operations, divided into three tables: Europe, West Africa and Central Africa.

The top list shows the services from Gabon to the metropole, a rotation of thrice-weekly flights, all terminating at Charles de Gaulle, but stopping in variously Marseille, Nice or Rome along the way.

The second box lists the northwesterly runs from Libreville, operated with either Fokker F-100 or Boeing B737 jets, once-weekly to Cotonou; twice-weekly to Abidjan via Lagos, extending on Mondays to Dakar; Douala and onward to Lomé on Wednesday; and Lomé-Abidjan on Saturday.

The third table shows the central and southern network. Shown here once weekly to Pointe-Noire, a F-28 flight to Bangui, and a Sunday flight to Douala only. There is a late-evening DC-10 to Kinshasa, co-listed with a Swissair flight number-- an earlier time, Swissair was known to fly to Zaïre, as has been shown in a previous post.

There is also an early morning B747 to Luanda--presumably a continuation of the Paris-Marseille-Libreville flight, with a TAAG Angola Airlines flight number listed. These joint ventures are noted at the bottom of the leaflet, but details on just which carrier's craft ran the service is not fully provided.

It is especially curious that Gabon's second city and petrolhub, Port-Gentil, is absent from the roster, as are other likely destinations such as Brazzaville, Malabo, and Yaounde.

 

Courtesy: The Timetablist

Sudan Airways; The Domestic Network, April 1977

Sudan Airways; The Domestic Network, April 1977

The second half of a fantastic prize of Flickr user caribb's incredible airline memorabilia collection: Sudan Airways "White Nile Intra-African and Regional Services" as of April 1977.

Showing a respectibly-dense network, including some regional connections in Darfur, Nubia, and South Sudan; yet all trans-national flights must connect via Khartoum.

As of 2011, although the livery was unchanged, the number of domestic destinations had been reduced to nine.

Please see previous post for international network. 

Courtesy: The TimeTablist

Sudan Airways: The International Routes, April 1977

Sudan Airways: The International Routes, April 1977

Yet another jaw-droppingly rare find from the world-class collection of Flickr user caribb: This unembellished matrix shows Sudan Airways "Blue Nile international Jet services" as of April, 1977.

The Gulf is heavily favored-- it is not common to find artifacts from this era showing routes to the 21st century hubs of today: Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha; however these are paired with the popular destinations of that contemporary vintage: San'a, Jeddah, and Bahrain.

Sudan's Nile-striped B707s connected to Europe, often via Cairo. None of the European services exist today. A single route heads westward to other Saharan cities, neighboring N'Djamena and terminating at Kano. This is apparently still active.

In its own region, Sudan Airways is startlingly spare: Addis Ababa, Entebbe, Dar Es Salaam, Mogadishu, Djibouti, and other, more distant candidates are absent. Perhaps there was a political explanation for this.

In quite an ironic foreshadowing, Juba, the capital of the newly-independent South Sudan, is show, here as part of the international network, connected to both Khartoum and Nairobi. It is only now, some 33 years later, that Khartoum-Juba flights will cross an international border.

Please see the next post for the contemporary domestic route map.

 

Courtesy:The TimeTablist

Nigeria Airways: International Routes, November 1973

Nigeria Airways: International Routes, November 1973

Having just recently featured Nigeria Airways in its vintage glory, it is particularly pleasing to highlight this second gem from the incredible collection of Flickr user caribb. This colorful, elephantine brochure cover reveals an entirely straightforward map of the Nigeria Airways international network inside. What is notable here is firstly the railroad-like West African leg, a spine connecting the Anglophone capitals, with a miniature hub at Monrovia. This service also touches Abidjan and Dakar, from whence the flying pachyderm stretches across the Atlantic to New York.

A second remarkable aspect is the dense web of trans-Saharan routes fanning out from Kano, reaching eight European capitals as well as Beirut, far more service than that ancient city enjoys today, a phenomenon that has been previously discussed. It is not possible to fly non-stop from many of these cities, such as Madrid, to Nigeria at present, and it is curious to contemplate having to travel from Lagos to Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Zürich via Kano.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank Doug from Montreal for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

 

Courtesy; The Timetablist

Lufthansa/Privatair Flight No. LH588: Frankfurt->Libreville->Pointe-Noire

Lufthansa/Privatair Flight No. LH588: Frankfurt->Libreville->Pointe-Noire

Here is the curious case of LH588: a 7 hour, 15 minute flight on board a wingleted B737-800 of Lufthansa-owned PrivatAir, from Frankfurt Airport to Libreville, Gabon, and then an onward hop of a little over an hour from Libreville to Augostinho Neto International Airport in Pointe-Noire, Congo Republic (which is also served by Air France non-stop from Paris). A seven hour journey aboard a single-isle plane may sound unbearable; but PrivatAir is all business class.

How does a major airline sustain an all-business class narrowbody, trans-equatorial service to two remote, sparsely-populated countries? Petroleum, of course.

 

Article Courtesy: The Timetablist

Nigeria Airways: Detail of the Domestic and Regional Network, April 1966

Nigeria Airways: Detail of the Domestic and Regional Network, April 1966

Still from the TimeTablist, showing the Pink Nigeria Airways in 1966

Still Nigeria Airways, still all pink. The state airways corporation operated a zig-zaging domestic network, shown here as an inset of the previous post from April 1966.

Note how, in a wonderfully curious gesture, an arrow points northeast from Maiduguri, promoted as a gateway to the Middle and Far East. The North-Eastern State, gateway to Baghdad and Hong Kong. Today, Maiduguri has barely a handful of weekly domestic flights.

Kano, Nigeria's oldest airport, was the starting gate of the northern routes to Europe for both Nigeria Airways and other airlines, and at least today still has intercontinental attention from KLM.

Historic African Airline Timetables - Nigeria Airways: Systemwide Network, April 1966

Historic African Airline Timetables - Nigeria Airways: Systemwide Network, April 1966

Pink was chosen to capture the essence of the fleet of the wingéd elephant's global reach in this delicious timetable from April 1966, sporting a roseate VC-10 flagship on its cover, with the stout pachydermian pegasus at lower left.

Regionally, Nigeria Airways plied a leg southeast to Douala and Leopoldville, and a littoral run west from Lagos, skipping only Conakry to reach Dakar, from whence it lept across the Atlantic to New York.

A northern web branches out from the Sahelian capital of Kano flew to Rome--curious how prominent this city was on the Europe-Africa networks--distance was perhaps a factor. Within Europe, unexpectedly the lines land at Rome, Frankfurt and Barcelona. Somewhat odd choices--perhaps distance was still a consideration. And London, naturally, London. A separate premier line from Lagos to London non-stop, which the map underscores. Abuja, of course, has yet to exist. The inset detail of the domestic network is examined in the next post.

The example featured in this post is another gem of the outstanding collection of Björn Larsson, part of the encyclopedic archive at Timetable Images. Thank you to Larsson and the rest of the Timetable Images team for their work and reproduction courtesies. 

 

Post Courtesy: The TimeTablist

Historic African Airline Route Maps - Cameroon Airlines: Systemwide Network

Historic African Airline Route Maps - Cameroon Airlines: Systemwide Network

Although Cameroon Airlines never abandoned its psychadelic-jungle imagery, it apparently had, by 1996, divested in original graphic design, seeming to opt instead to scrawl its network over a readymade map.

Its not clear from this artifact (borrowed from the incredible archives of Timetable Images, specifically the collection of Björn Larsson) what the red lines indicate, as opposed to the green lines, or why some destinations are in red type and others, such as Harare, Libreville Brazzaville, have no demarcation beyond what the atlas already provided. This leaves some details unclear: for instance, while the Douala-Garoua-Jeddah and Douala-Garoua-N'Djamena routes can be made out, it is difficult to determine whether the airline served Point-Noire or Lomé, or if the East African route, from Brazzaville to Nairobi, used Bujumbura, Kigali, Entebbe, Goma, or Kivu as way stations.

Historic African Airline Route Maps: Cameroon Airlines: Systemwide Network, Summer 1976

Historic African Airline Route Maps: Cameroon Airlines: Systemwide Network, Summer 1976

One of the earliest and most marked secessions from the Air Afrique consortium was the Republic of Cameroon, which withdrew in 1971 to found its own flag carrier, Cameroon Airlines.

This overbright document, colored and typefaced like a Chinese menu, exemplifies the very singular presence of the airline's quasi-Maoist, neo-hippie branding, from its Star-and-crane logo to its jungle-chic Paris ticket office. from the incredible archives of Timetable Images.

A dense domestic network, was concentrated on the English-speaking southwest and zig-zagged northward to terminate at N'Djamena. Long-range ventures out of Douala reached Marseille, Paris-Orly, Geneva and Rome, likely with B707s-- the pride of fleet B747s, rarely native to tropical Africa, did not arrive until 1982. No international or intercontinental flights out of Yaoundé (Nsimalen International Airport now enjoys service from Air France, Brussels Airlines, and Swissair, at least).

Like many Air Afrique replacements, Cameroon Airlines did not last, and the country is left with fledgling, marginal re-iterations: Camair Co is scheduled to begin flying tomorrow to--where else? Paris. Also here.

This, like several other recent installments, is from the incredible archives of Timetable Images, specifically the collection of Björn Larsson-- reprinted with appreciation.

Article Courtesy: The TimeTablist

African Airlines Timetables: Air Mauritanie: Systemwide Network, 2002

African Airlines Timetables: Air Mauritanie: Systemwide Network, 2002

The Timetablist travels to Mauritania

Continuing with those national carriers which sprang up in the wake of the Air Afrique collapse, here is a combination timetable and route map of Air Mauritanie, the flag carrier of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

This 2002 snapshot shows a dense domestic network, as the vast, unforgiving Mauritanian terrain can most efficiently be transversed by air. This was the original purpose of the airline, which was founded in 1962, about the same time as Air Afrique itself, which was concerned with external destinations.

The Nouakchott-Paris route is a point of pride, and the Nouadhibou-Las Palmas route is interesting, perhaps made viable by fishing and shipping industries. Air Mauritanie also tried to take slices of the more lucrative Dakar-Bamako-Abidjan triangle (the Francophone West Africa equivalent of Dakar-Bamako-Abidjan) with an extension to Cotonou.

Unfortunately, Air Mauritanie, like Air Afrique before it, did not last, folding in 2007. Furthermore, its successor, Mauritanian Airways, also proved unviable, particularly after being black-listed from EU airspace in the Fall of 2010. A third iteration of a national airline, Mauritania Airlines International, is currently operating.

This has been graciously lent to Timetablist from the incredible website Timetable Images;this particular gem is part of the collection of Arthur Na, via Timetable Images founder David Zekria.

Toumaï air Tchad Systemwide Network, March 2005

Toumaï air Tchad Systemwide Network, March 2005

Continuing series from the Timetablist blog, here we travel to Chad

Continuing to examine West African state carriers in the wake of Air Afrique's demise, this posts credits, with special thanks, the incredible, encyclopedic Timetable Images website for freely lending the above artifact, dated March 2005, from the personal collection of David Zekria.

From its fortress hub at N'Djamena, Toumaï air Tchad runs weekly flights to neighboring capitals as far as Cotonou and Brazzaville, as well as the north Cameroonian town of Garoua. Some sort of cooperative service connects Jeddah and Ouagadougou to the Chadian capital. Domestic destinations include Abéché, Moundou and Sarh. No flagship route to Paris, but as of 2008, the airline had added Libreville, Lomé, Abidjan, Yaounde, and Dubaï. Currently, the status of the airline is difficult to verify, as it is without functioning website.

African Airline Route Maps: Air Burkina: Systemwide Network, c.2004

African Airline Route Maps: Air Burkina: Systemwide Network, c.2004

Further post-Air Afrique aviation: with special complements to the website Developpement Felix Mayer is this colorful Carte of Air Burkina's Reseau, which the fantastic site Timetable Images suggest was issued around mid-2004. The airline's pride of system was undoubtedly the Paris route; the Lomé to Cotonou flight must be a short hop. Note that not a single Anglophone destination is served.

 

Post Courtesy: The TimeTablist

Air France: The African Routes, 1977. Detail #1: East Africa & the Indian Ocean

Air France: The African Routes, 1977. Detail #1: East Africa & the Indian Ocean

Air France: The African Routes, 1977. Detail #1: East Africa & the Indian Ocean

Compared to the Western portion of the continent, where Air France was absent in 1977 and is quite present today, the Eastern half of Africa was much more thickly webbed by Hippodrome jets than it is today.

Air France does not even service Nairobi any more, but it was an important way-station between Europe and the former colonies of the Indian Ocean, with a stretching nonstop from CDG. Similarly, its amazing to see Djibouti as a massive hub, linked in a Cairo-Jeddah-Addis Ababa axis and also linked to the entire Francophone archipelago.

Other Anglophone cities that Air France has since abandoned include Dar Es Salaam and Entebbe (linked to Athens) as well as the Ethiopian capital. Links between Paris, Mauritius and Madagascar remain important today, but the native carriers of the region take a sizable share of the loads on their wide-body jets to Europe. Mahé is no longer an Air France destination, and Bujumbura and Kigali were also dropped, but still served from northwestern Europe by Brussels Airlines.

See previous post for other portion of this route map.

 

Post Courtesy the TimeTablist

Air Afrique: Worldwide Network, 1999 Television Advert: Detail Still Showing Route Map.

Air Afrique: Worldwide Network, 1999 Television Advert: Detail Still Showing Route Map.

From the TimeTablist

The animated map sequence in this 1999 Air Afrique television commercial gives the viewer only moments to decipher Air Afrique's route network, and its European destinations are never in full view, with Rome discernible here (and is listed in the words moving across the screen) and Paris assumed, but the dot on the Cote D'Azur might be either Nice or Marseille.

Despite this lack of clarity, this still frame shows the classic structure of its home network, with a few qualifiers. It seems that at the turn of the millenium, Accra, Bobo Dioulasso, and Nouadhibou had been dropped, along with Monrovia and Freetown, both sadly embroiled in conflict at the time.

The city along the coast between Libreville and Kinshasa would correspond to the Brazzaville which pops up on screen despite being more the location of Pointe-Noire, which, along with Port-Gentil, is absent from the network.

The eastern extension from N'Djamena to Jeddah is clear, as is the transatlantic flagship from Dakar to JFK at left. Nairobi comes across the screen but there is no clear route to East Africa shown here.

Air Afrique: Worldwide Network, 1999 Television Advert

Air Afrique: Worldwide Network, 1999 Television Advert

Our series from the TimeTablist Continues...

This wonderful Air Afrique television advert from 1999 finishes Air Afrique Week on Timetablist. In the sequence, the palm of the boy's hand becomes the African continent, with the entire route network shown as the image zooms out across the globe.

While the cities are not labeled and the map is too cartoonish to accurately determine what city corresponds to each node, the names of major destinations soar across the screen. The route from Dakar to New York can be clearly seen, as well as the incredibly dense network into Metropolitan France, but as with Thursday's post, specific routes and cities are very difficult to conclusively ascertain. Some secondary cities, such as Nouadhibou and Bobo Dioulasso, are not evident.

The next post will cover this route map animation in a bit more detail.

Air Afrique: Route Map Poster c. 1962

Air Afrique: Route Map Poster c. 1962

The penultimate post for Air Afrique Week brings this polychrome poster showing the home ports of the consortium. Little information is available for this print, which was a lot in a New York vintage poster auction in February 2010. While the usual suspects of Air Afrique's destinations from Brazzaville to Bamako, Douala to Dakar, Freetown to Fort-Lamy are evident, this low-resolution preview doesn't reveal many of the details.

It seems that, near the crane-like yellow and blue bird straddling the Nigeria-Cameroon border are some mysterious destinations, and the oval inset map shows a zebra-stripe of trans-Saharan routes by the dozen, including what looks to be some very easterly swings, suggesting something like a Bangui-to-Budapest or Malabo-to-Moscow, which is fantasy.

The auction catalogue gives a date of 1950, but this is more than a decade before Air Afrique was incorporated. Perhaps, given the vintage, this was willful rather than a matter of record.

Article Courtesy TimeTablist