Summer is peak season for international air travel. And Americans love to fly abroad. Last year, more than 40 million of us did so, with more than a million flying to two countries: Israel and Taiwan. Even so, several airlines have erased those names from online route maps. Some are members of alliances led by major U.S. carriers. Some are major U.S. carriers. Their altered maps bear airline and alliance logos, sometimes even the logo of a U.S. tech giant supplying their maps.
It's more than just strange to single out Israel and Taiwan for map erasure. It's an Orwellian act denying reality and undermining the legitimacy of two democracies protected and supported for decades by the United States.
Why do it? At least for the U.S. carriers, the answer seems to be that map erasure of Israel and Taiwan is good for business abroad — as long as we don't ask questions back home.
Pretending that rivals are less than what they are is a standard tactic for one country trying to bully another. So Iran challenges the sovereignty of a "hegemonic" Israel, while China challenges the sovereignty of the "renegade province" of Taiwan.
Challenges aside, it's hard to say that Israel and Taiwan are not countries. Ask more than a million Americans visiting both each year. Israel and Taiwan have borders, governments, multiparty elections, and other trappings of liberal democratic statehood conspicuously missing from countries seeking to delegitimize them. Israel is a United Nations member recognized by more than 160 countries. Taiwan lost U.N. membership in the 1970s, but is still recognized formally or informally by more than 70 countries. Successive U.S. governments have protected both while pursuing more (historically) or less (currently) a "two-state solution" in the Middle East and a "One-China" policy in the Far East.
Given this geopolitical reality, it's not surprising that Google's default online map bearing the company logo names both countries. Google's default cartography matches reality.
Many airlines use that Google map when designing their own online route maps. Most change little. They alter the Google map to highlight routes and destination cities or add company logos. Sometimes they also retain the Google logo. Resulting airline online route maps typically name all countries, including Israel and Taiwan, even if neither includes destination cities. Delta Air Lines and Austrian Airlines have this type of online route map. They "embrace" Israel and Taiwan cartographically.
Other airlines don't. They make changes embracers make, but then go further. They erase Israel or Taiwan to "deny" their existence cartographically. Kuwait Airways denies Israel's existence by singling it out for erasure. Air Canada denies Taiwan's existence similarly. Saudia denies both countries similarly. They all do it with altered Google maps bearing Google logos — an Orwellian form of co-branding.
