Royal Air Maroc just announced a pretty noteworthy flight, as it’s both their longest route ever, and also their route that’s furthest East.
Royal Air Maroc Will Fly To Beijing
Royal Air Maroc will launch 3x weekly flights between Casablanca and Beijing as of January 16, 2020. The route will operate 3x weekly with the following schedule:
AT230 Casablanca to Beijing departing 5:00PM arriving 11:55AM (+1 day)
AT231 Beijing to Casablanca departing 1:55PM arriving 7:55PM
The flight will cover a distance of 6,273 miles, and is blocked at 11hr55min eastbound and 13hr westbound. It will operate eastbound on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and westbound on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
Royal Air Maroc will use a Boeing 787-9 for the route, featuring a total of 302 seats, including 26 business class seats and 276 economy seats.
Royal Air Maroc’s 787-9 business class
RAM will be operating to Beijing’s new Daxing International Airport, which will be opening shortly.
RAM’s CEO has said that this route will “enable us to respond to a strong need expressed by business operators from the two countries and will participate in further strengthening trade and economic cooperation between Morocco and China.”
While Royal Air Maroc has an extensive transatlantic route network and network to Europe and Africa, their service to Asia is quite limited. Their only flights to Asia as of now are to Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, so this will be their first Far East destination.
While the flights are already in the schedule, as of the time of this post they’re not yet bookable, as inventory is zeroed out. I expect this to change soon.
Royal Air Maroc’s 787-9 business class
Royal Air Maroc Joining Oneworld In 2020
Royal Air Maroc is expected to join the oneworld alliance in 2020, so this is potentially a cool way to get to Beijing on oneworld.
Redeem Miles On Royal Air Maroc
Eventually it will be possible to earn and redeem oneworld miles on Royal Air Maroc, though that’s not the case yet. The good news is that there’s one really good niche redemption opportunity, which I also consider to be one of the best award redemption sweet spots out there.
You can redeem just 44,000 Etihad Guest miles for a one-way business class ticket on any Royal Air Maroc route. So not only could you book Casablanca to Beijing for 44,000 miles, but you could potentially even include a connection from North America on the same ticket.
Royal Air Maroc’s business class catering
Royal Air Maroc’s North American destinations include Boston, Miami, Montreal, New York, and Washington. That’s a heck of a use of miles.
Etihad Guest is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou, and Capital One, so there are quite a few ways to earn these miles.
- Access to Amex Offers
- Redeem Amex Points Towards Airfare
- $375
- Earn 5x points on flights purchased directly from airlines or through Amex Travel (up to $500k/year)
- $200 Annual Uber Credit
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $895
- Earn 2x on purchases of $5,000 or more in a single transaction on up to $2MM per calendar year
- Redeem Points For Over 1.5 Cents Each Towards Airfare
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $895
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
Bottom Line
It’s cool to see Royal Air Maroc not only launch their longest route ever, but also to expand into the Far East. There currently aren’t any nonstop flights between Morocco and China, so this opens up some nice new opportunities.
Best of all, redeeming Etihad Guest miles for Royal Air Maroc’s business class is a spectacular value.
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