I feel as torn as a Muse Air timetable I rescued from a travel agent's shredder. As a computer nerd I relished the arrival of the searchable, customizable electronic timetables a decade ago, particularly the KLM version which animated their flights and those of their partners on a customizable map. As a history buff I get angry everytime I see another data set expires.
Southwest timetables have indeed become small books (I reserve the term "novel" for airlines whose actual departures and arrivals bear no resemblance to the printed times). Furthermore, Southwest connects nearly every city with all other cities on its system almost every day of the year, making date-based on-line searches a reasonable task. For airlines with less frequent flights, a printed timetable, or a web-based facsimilie, would make a trip between Kuala Lumpur and Khabarovsk far easier to plan.
Once a surly airport agent refused to sell me a ticket, insisting that my destination had no airport. A timetable effective that day helped me prove that bi-weekly flights to that airport would commence the next morning.
Many flag carriers continue to publish Japanese editions of their timetables long after the demise of other editions, so, to all you "Flugplan fanatics," out there, whenever a friend tells you of his/her upcoming visit to Tokyo or Osaka, beg them to visit the city air terminals, or domestic airports, to help you augment your endangered collection.
Speaking of Lufthansa timetables, I have one from every decade dating back to the 1920s, in many languages, including Chinese and Hebrew, except I have never seen, not even in German museums, any example from the 1940s.
Mr. Lusk, even though I dread the news, I really aprreciate reading about your knowledge and passion.
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