Maxwell Roberts just posted about this on Twitter, and I have to share. A bit of poking around on the Internet found a slightly better image than his, so enjoy! This is a diagram of the routes of Imperial Airways in 1935 by none other than Henry Charles Beck (yes, that H.C. Beck). I had no idea that he’d created such a diagram up until now, but it clearly bears many of the hallmarks of […]
Submitted by Jack, who says: This is an ad for British Overseas Airways Corporation in the old Australian newspaper The Bulletin, September 17, 1947. I found it while digitizing the paper at work! Transit Maps says: This is a glorious find, and one that @airlinemaps would certainly be very interested in. Compositionally, the diagram is very interesting, with a dead straight line linking Britain to the Antipodes (somewhat mitigating the fact that the line represents […]
Here’s one for @airlinemaps: a wonderful infographic/diagram mashup from the 1950s that packs in heaps of information, right down to the type of airplane used on each route (denoted by the colour of each line). Flight numbers, time of departure/arrival, days of service, through routing of flights… it’s all incorporated into the one graphic. And it’s trilingual as well! Compare with this very similar diagram of Polish Airlines LOT routes from 1939 (June 2015, 5 […]
Via airlinemaps: The Korean Air Lines route map from a 1 July 1974 timetable. This is a fun map – it takes diagrammatic elements and mixes them with curves to create a pleasant aesthetic. A key that includes the status of the Bangkok-Singapore route and what the destinations without routes indicate would be a good addition. KAL operated 29 aircraft, including four 707s, three 727s, three 747s and four DC-8s, in July 1974, the Flight […]
Via: airlinemaps: A vintage British Airways worldwide map from 1975, just a year after the carrier was just created through the merger of BOAC and British European Airways (BEA). This map is a fantastic airline-meets-railway design that could be on the Transit Maps blog. Routes to destinations connect to main trunk lines that by and far lead to London, more like the current British National Rail map than an airline route map. By not including any landmasses, BA […]
Submitted by Mattias Lq, who says: I know how you don’t like many airway maps trying to be schematic, but this one is a rather successful combination of a simplified geographical map and a schematic inset showing frequencies throughout the year. Although it has some minor beauty flaws here and there, it is really a beautiful map, especially considering the five colours used to print the map! What do you say? Transit Maps says: Mattias, […]
An absolutely phenomenal airline route diagram from 1939, which is both map and schedule in one. The thicker route lines represent the routes that belong to Polish Airlines LOT – one of the oldest continually operating airlines in Europe; they still use the beautiful flying crane logo today – with thinner route lines representing partner or connecting airlines. Red lines show daily service, black lines show weekday or irregular service. The departure and arrival times […]
Sent my way by long-time correspondent, Kyril Negoda. I’m not entirely sure of the vintage of this, as the archive it resides in covers the entire period from 1980–2000, and none of the images have dates attached to them. There’s definitely an early 1980s vibe to it, though – mainly from the tightly kerned Futura Bold heading at the top. I’ve seen transit map-styled airline maps before (here and here, for example), but this one […]
Submitted by Veenspace, who says: I made this map inspired by a recent CityLab post on airline maps. It posed that most maps are geographically accurate but hard to read, and that the maps that do go for minimalism lose any geographical component. There’s a balance between the two that I wanted to achieve: readable and geographical. I chose to design it like a circuit board, with KLM’s central hub as the CPU. Transit Maps […]
