Thanks for all the above.
We seem also to be touching on ‘History and Nostalgia’, but interesting nonetheless.
This all arose because for the last couple of years I have needed to travel several times a year between Manchester and Dar es Salaam (and onward, but that is a whole different story) and will be doing the same this year.
However, I became aware that I had no general feel for the options available that I might have had in the ‘hardcopy’ era and I had to trawl the airline and flight booking websites to get the picture, which took some time.
I have been using KLM or Etihad, and am also aware that the other Mid-east (including Turkish) airlines offer options as well as Swiss (nearly wrote Swissair!). Recently, Ethiopian has started operating ADD-BRU-MAN creating another option, but in the run up to commencement the Ethiopian website proved difficult to navigate.
Anyway, I am on top of this routing for now, but just wondered if anyone else found that the more open ended travel options were difficult to find in the digital era - It would seem so.
I think digital works where flights are point to point and daily – Which the vast majority of long haul seems to be these days. Whereas it is not so easy if the flight only operates on certain days and stops off along the way or a change of aircraft is required, as is usually the case for the less well frequented long haul destinations when you start from Manchester..
I liked WHBM’s restaurant analogy!
PAXboy – Your historic map/timetable post is very interesting – Is this available on the internet or is it a scan of a document you possess?