KT550

Armenia - Armenian Airlines
Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan Airlines
Belarus - Belavia
Estonia - Estonian Air
Georgia - ORBI
Kazakhstan - Kaz Air / Kazakhstan Airlines
Kyrghyzstan - Kyrghyzstan Airlines
Latvia - Latavio or Baltica International. Maybe Latavio was domestic/CIS only
Lithuania - Lithuanian Airlines
Moldova - Air Moldova
Russia - Aeroflot Russian Airlines
Tajikistan - Tajik Air
Turkmenistan - Turkmenistan Airlines
Ukraine - Air Ukraine (different to Ukraine Int'l/Air Akraine Int'l)
Uzbekistan - Uzbekistan Airways

KT550

My bonus question:

Airline which initially served four countries and now serves just one.

WHBM

Well done KT, looks about right, both for the republics and the airlines. I actually haven't looked them up myself yet, will do so later. A couple didn't last very long. Aeroflot was quite soon afterwards broken up itself across Russia by directorate, such as the St Petersburg (recently renamed from Leningrad) operation becoming Pulkovo.

There had been Aeroflot Directorates at their principal points, with at least one for every Republic. It was a decidedly federal operation, as the Soviet Union overall was in many aspects. Moscow was obviously the largest. In typical Soviet fashion there was then infighting between them for who operated the routes that connected any two Directorate centres. There was of course a Central Planning function as well. In addition to these regionalised Directorates there was the golden world of the International Directorate as well, also based in Moscow but organisationally quite separate from the domestic one there, who did all the international routes, with a separate fleet. This almost entirely radiated from Moscow, but there were a few elsewhere, which were "subcontracted" to the relevant regional operation. New aircraft were assigned around the network by Central Planning as required, and commonly stayed at that location long term, for years.

WHBM

Gulf Air ?

KT550

Correct.

Bahrain based Gulf Air's original shareholders were Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Oman (though the aircraft were registered in Oman).
As Qatar (2002), Abu Dhabi (2006) and Oman (2007) left to form their own national airlines, GF became fully Bahraini owned in 2007.

WHBM

What a wet weekend. Yes, I know it always is meant to be in Britain, but October has already become the wettest month of the year - and that was only at the end of the 3rd ! And it's continued to pour today. So lets have a look at some of these discussions.

Gulf Air is fortunate to have survived. Typical of what happens with "multi national" carriers, they start with the best of intentions in a grouping of smaller adjacent nations, but then one or more feels slighted with the way the network has grown to the advantage of one over the other, for what may be commercially sensible but politically not so reasons.

When Gulf started off Bahrain was the principal commercial (and indeed oil industry) centre of the region, the others just tagged along, but then developed themselves. Their key markets were west, to developed Europe, and east, to the Indian subcontinent, where most of the national workforce comes from. Given the geography, Bahrain in the west became the principal departure point for nonstop European flights, the others needing one or two stops along the way to get a planeload. This of course hacked off Qatar, Dubai, etc. It didn't help that the HQ was in Bahrain as well, if not in London - well into the 1970s the aircraft, One-Elevens, F27s, VC10s, even the first Tristars, were all registered in Britain, there was a management office in London, and pretty much all the crews were British, many seemingly ex-RAF who had served in the area previously. The rundown has been quite recent, since the year 2000, as the likes of Qatar, Etihad, and indeed Emirates have blossomed. Gulf Air were a pioneer of flights from London to India and Thailand that undercut the fares of the direct operators, with a couple of stops across The Gulf along the way.

The Gulf Air museum is in, of all places, Sharjah, which is effectively a suburb of Dubai. It's a brilliant little museum if you ever get to that part of the world, nicely presented, nobody there; a taxi will take you there from Dubai airport in about 20 minutes.

Bluehen1

So, this would be Lufthansa (Germany/West Germany) and Interflug (East Germany).

vanillabean

I enjoyed this story of some historic interest last night.

True Nordic Crimes S01:E01 - The Airline Murder
When the first Icelandic jet was purchased, a number of pilots went to the US for training. Two of them did not finish the regimen, with catastrophic consequences.

https://tubitv.com/series/2994/true-nordic-crimes

YVR Cockroach

YVR Cockroach

Still looking for a few answers.

Which airlines were

1. flag carrier for 2 different countries (was a question earlier this year) (name of the countries will be obvious)

2A. flag carrier for what eventually became 2 different countries (and is still the flag carrier for one of the countries). Name the other country and its flag carrier too.

Flag carrier for one political country and it still the flag carrier of an expanded (or reunified) country. Name the flag carrier of the other now-subsumed country.
This question has two sets of answers. The one already answered is Lufthansa of the BRD (FRG) and Inter-Flug of the DDR (GDR).

jrl767

I stand partially corrected ... going back to the question as originally posed
UA is PARTIALLY CORRECT for the second flight

as a further hint, other than TT's DC9, there were only a limited number of twin-engine aircraft types plying the skies around AMA in early 1966, and their OAG codes only had two characters

Bluehen1

Taking a stab at 2A. Ethiopian Airlines for Ethiopia and Eritrea which now has its own flag carrier, Eritrean Airlines. Second thoughts have me with South African Airways for South Africa and Namibia with Namibia having its own carrier Air Namibia.

The other question could be Yemenia (Yemen Arab Airlines) for what is now Yemen but Yemen Arab Republic/North Yemen and Alyemda (Yemen Airlines) for South Yemen.

jlemon

Looks like a wet upcoming weekend here in Lafayette as well as Hurricane Delta is now forecast to make landfall tomorrow afternoon or evening in southwest Louisiana close to where Hurricane Laura made landfall. We are currently under a Hurricane Warning here and it appears we will primarily experience a high wind event with gusts possibly around 100 mph rather than a flood event. The good news is that Hurricane Delta is predicted to be moving along at a fairly rapid clip and should also quickly begin to dissipate once it makes landfall. So we are now making final preparations for a worst case scenario here whilst hoping for the best.

jrl767

was wondering about your whereabouts ... good to know you'll likely escape the worst of the storm

YVR Cockroach

I will give Ethiopia and Eritrea a and it is a good one for further future re-use (and I have to research it) but I was thinking of countries and airlines further east. A hint: One of the countries was the beneficiary of what was probably one of the earliest benefit rock concerts.

I would not count Namibia as it was handed over to the British Empire/South Africa as a governing mandate, rather than officially ceded and integrated, as a result of WW-I.