Hello from Casablanca! On Wednesday evening I flew from Miami to Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc.
This happened to be the inaugural flight for the route. I would have actually preferred not to book the inaugural (as I prefer to experience service on a non-special flight), but this is just the way my schedule worked out.
Besides, I’ve reviewed Royal Air Maroc’s 787-8 business class, and my primary motivation here was to experience their new 787-9 business class, which was just recently introduced.
In this post I wanted to share my initial thoughts, and I’ll have a full trip report soon.
Royal Air Maroc business class cabin & seats
Royal Air Maroc now has 26 reverse herringbone seats on their Boeing 787-9s, which represents a massive improvement over their old “top/bottom” seating, where passengers were literally sleeping at different heights.
Royal Air Maroc chose B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats for this plane, which are my preferred reverse herringbone seat.
I also love the colors they chose for the cabin.
Royal Air Maroc business class food
This was a 7hr40min flight departing at around 11PM, with dinner being served after takeoff, and breakfast being served before landing.
Service began with canapés and nuts, along with Laurent-Perrier rose, which was excellent.
The starter consisted of marinated and grilled scallops with peppers, along with a salad with salmon.
For the main course I ordered grilled halibut with lemon and dill sauce, along with rice and broccoli. The fish itself was quite good, while the sauce was meh.
Next up there was a cheese course.
Lastly there was the choice of three desserts, including tiramisu, a lemon tart, or Boston cream pie.
Royal Air Maroc business class amenities
Royal Air Maroc has well stocked amenity kits in business class, along with slippers.
As far as bedding goes, while the pillow was small and disappointing, the blanket was large and plush.
Royal Air Maroc business class entertainment & Wi-Fi
Royal Air Maroc has a highly responsive entertainment system. Unfortunately the selection was fairly limited.
Even though this is a brand new plane, Royal Air Maroc still hasn’t installed Wi-Fi.
Royal Air Maroc business class service
I don’t want to judge the service on this flight too much. This was an inaugural flight, so I imagine the crew was hand-picked.
However, the service exactly matched my past experience on Royal Air Maroc. The crew was genuinely friendly and well intentioned, though also unpolished.
So they get a lot of credit for their friendliness, but there are so many missed opportunities in terms of executing on service.
I’d note one other thing that may have impacted service. Initially there were only three people booked in business class, but they decided to upgrade 23 people to business class at the gate.
I’m not sure if that was specifically because it was an inaugural, or if it’s just a “move friends and family up last minute” thing, which matches my past experiences on airlines in the region.
Royal Air Maroc 787-9 business class bottom line
Royal Air Maroc’s new 787-9 represents a substantial improvement over their old business class product. The airline offers excellent seats, good food, and friendly but unpolished service.
Given that you can redeem just 44,000 Etihad Guest miles to fly the airline anywhere in their network, I’d say they’re a great option.
I just booked JFK CMN in December in business using 44k Citi TY points for each leg. Seemed to be plenty of availability. Fees were ~$470 per ticket. Points transferred instantly, while I was on the phone with the agent (I had to log out of and then back into my account to see them).
I found dealing with the Etihad Guest US customer service # to be very easy. At one point in my...
I just booked JFK CMN in December in business using 44k Citi TY points for each leg. Seemed to be plenty of availability. Fees were ~$470 per ticket. Points transferred instantly, while I was on the phone with the agent (I had to log out of and then back into my account to see them).
I found dealing with the Etihad Guest US customer service # to be very easy. At one point in my research I spoke to an agent who wasn't particularly helpful. She said she thought she couldn't see flights because it was too far out. But I called back and spoke to someone who was able to find the seats I wanted.
The seat map isn't available for this aircraft for Royal Air Maroc on Seatguru so I'd love to hear thoughts on seat preferences.
Thanks,
Isaac
Brooklyn
I was literally just flying out of Casa on Wednesday night and it was not particularly nice or easy, the new terminal for later night departures just means you have to enter at terminal 1, slog down to terminal 2 for check in and then slog back for your gate. So basically unless you are leaving in the day and on RAM you don't get a benefit. The terminal staff is also not great, no...
I was literally just flying out of Casa on Wednesday night and it was not particularly nice or easy, the new terminal for later night departures just means you have to enter at terminal 1, slog down to terminal 2 for check in and then slog back for your gate. So basically unless you are leaving in the day and on RAM you don't get a benefit. The terminal staff is also not great, no announcements for delays or other issues. So, not the worst airport I've been to (that would be Tunis or Bishkek) but not my favorite either.
@Vanya
If one is flying Business they do do a separate Business Class minibus from gate to aircraft which helps a lot.
But when I departed they forgot to organise it.
"Est-ce qu'il y a un autobus pour Business Class?" produced the minibus !
(Those last two words are not due to my limitations in French - it's what they call it in French)
I’m booked for 2 people from/to JFK next month, any thoughts on good window and center section seats?
My eyes hurt from the decor, its way too busy
My eyes hurt its too busy
@Lucky I've been there in January 2019 (arrival-departure), and while arrival was not that bad, departure was just terrible. Crowded, disorganized. It also took me 45 minutes to simply get into the terminal after getting off the airport train. And this is the first airport ever where even in Starbucks a cashier tried to rip people off in change :)
But yeah, if you say so, maybe things turned around. After all, I really...
@Lucky I've been there in January 2019 (arrival-departure), and while arrival was not that bad, departure was just terrible. Crowded, disorganized. It also took me 45 minutes to simply get into the terminal after getting off the airport train. And this is the first airport ever where even in Starbucks a cashier tried to rip people off in change :)
But yeah, if you say so, maybe things turned around. After all, I really like new Moroccan infrastructure (Casa Port railway station, Marrakech railway station and new airport terminal), and Morocco as a country is really fascinating.
44K is great, how much are fees/taxes for this route?
@Lucky: Thanks!
@Lucky. When will we be able to [attempt to :-))) ] redeem AA miles on Royal Air Morocco? Mid 2020?
@ Daniel B. -- Yep, that's the plan as of now, unless they launch some sort of pre-oneworld partnership before that.
Royal Air Maroc is perfectly fine, but Casablanca airport is a disaster, departure, arrival or transit. Simply embarrassing.
@ Vanya -- In the past I would have agreed, but they just opened an extension of the existing terminal. The terminal is really nice, RAM has a new lounge, and the transit experience is super easy. I'd recommend giving CMN another shot.
Flew business class in December 2018 and the cabin staff were nice but the food was not as good as I had expected. Tinted windows(not my favorite) difficult to self managed and a canbin crew had to manage it from somewhere after several requests. The business needs improvement in my view if they want to stay conpetitive
The cabin decor is ugly. They must have the same consultant that came up with the BONVoY and HOH visuals....
Still can’t move my Citi Points to Etihad? We’re you ever able to do it for this flight? Any update on resolution?
@ FranP -- I still haven't been able to transfer points, though a friend let me borrow his Etihad Guest miles.
Do they have a tendency to release award seats closer to departure?
@ Charles -- I've found they are pretty good about releasing award space both far in advance and close to departure.
Fly Turkish airlines for 40k Asiana miles
does royal air maroc offer any Moroccan food on the menu? kinda disappointing if they don't do anything unique and just offer standard "fancy" business class food.
@ turgutbey -- I was also disappointed by the lack of Moroccan food. At least they have good tea!
Ben I dont think you ever updated on whether Etihad miles are still having issues with Amex/Citi. Assuming they resolved this but I'm curious for what happened.
@ Evan -- Unfortunately the same issues still exist, I just borrowed Etihad Guest points from a friend.
I've been looking for a MIA-Istanbul business class oneworld award flight, and it seems that flying RAM with a layover in Casablanca would be 44,000 miles one way. Is this right? It seems like a great option if possible.
@ David -- That's correct!
which represents a massive improvement over their old “top/bottom” seating, where passengers were literally sleeping at different heights.
Oh, is that what it meant?