Royal Air Maroc has great potential, but a lot of work to do if it truly wants to offer a competitive transatlantic business class product. My 787-9 business class flight from New York to Casablanca was not a total disaster but marked by one missed opportunity after another.
Royal Air Maroc 787-9 Business Class – My First Impressions
Years ago, I flew Royal Air Maroc onboard the 787-8 business class with One Mile At A Time, but was keen to try its latest business class product, found only on the 787-9. Royal Air Maroc, often called RAM, flies up to two flights per day between New York (JFK) and Casablanca (CMN).
The cabin is quite unique looking, in a good way, with purple accents and a unique Moroccan pattern on the seats and walls. The reverse herringbone seats are not bad…in theory…when they work.
Perhaps we start with that?
My seat was broken: it would not recline. The control module for the seat was inoperative. The power outlet also did not work (two flights in a row…).
So I moved to the seat behind me. This time, the seat reclined, but not all the way. No matter how I tried, it would not go flat.
The third seat was the charm…I was able to recline this one fully, but found there was a large gap between the cushions when in the lie-flat position (like I experienced on American Airlines…same seat).
How was I able to move seats twice? Oddly, the load factor in business class was only about 25%…like old-school business class before airlines figured out how to monetize it.
The most important thing about business class is the seat, so this was a royal failure.
But the service was also so odd.
First, let me say that service seemed well-intentioned: the ladies were nice and one flight attendant was particularly kind. However, just moments after settling into my seat, a flight attendant came over and asked me what I wanted for dinner.
No greetings. No welcome aboard. Just, “What do you want to eat?” Did they get their training from United Airlines or American Airlines?
We took off and the meals came out quickly after takeoff. Great, right?
First a canape:
Moments later, a tray was plopped down in front of me with an appetizer of burrata, artichoke, asparagus, and bresaola. Not bad at all.
But do you notice anything?
Two glasses, both empty. The flight attendant did not ask if I wanted something to drink.
In fact, the main course showed up and I still had no beverage…no one in the cabin seemed to have one.
I requested a glass of white wine and a look of grim doom spread across the face of the flight attendant.
Oops. She realized she had forgotten drinks.
Soon I had sparkling water and wine (which was terrible, though I wanted to try the Moroccan wine). The main course was tiny…the fish portion was only a few bites…but it wasn’t a bad meal.
After came dessert: cheese followed by fruit.
The meal itself was fine, but the beverage thing was strange.
While a “flight to Africa” may sound like a long flight, the flight is only blocked at seven hours, which means time in the air is only about six hours thanks to long taxi times at JFK built in.
I went to sleep after dinner (and after finding a seat that worked). The bedding is average, with a soft blanket but no mattress pad or fluffy pillow.
About three hours later…with more than two hours still to go in the light…I was awakened for breakfast. This is absolutely the kind of flight that you want to just sleep and skip breakfast on, but I wanted to sample breakfast for the purproses of my flight review. It was quite substantial:
And yet I was too full from dinner to eat more than a few bites of the frittata, leaving everything else.
Breakfast is a nice option to have, but serving this with two hours to go is totally unnecessary. Especially with the low cabin loads, there would have been plenty of time to serve this 45 minutes to an hour before landing.
Also, no wi-fi and the in-flight entertainment selection was quite limited.
However, I quite liked the amenity kit and its contents.
Could the flight have been worse? Sure. But the broken seats do not inspire confidence and the service, while well-intentioned, could really use a lot of work.
Would I fly RAM again? If I had to. But never deliberately.
I’ll have more details in my full review.
I’ve tried to fly that out of IST, but it seems like it’s almost a guaranteed day of swap. I’ll try again over the holidays. RAM is funny, because your meals (aside from the forgotten wine) don’t look bad, and I’ve never had a crew that at least didn’t try to give good service. On their narrowbodies, they’re somewhat pleasant to fly, but a non-functional seat is a pretty big deal breaker.
Does anyone else get banner ads using a clearly scraped picture of matt for some “flight attendant tips” on other websites?
Yes, I’ve now heard this from many people and seen it myself.
You made her feel so nervous she forgot the drink service.
American Airlines and ANA also turn the lights on full without about two hours till landing. I hate it! ESP overnight from the states to London or overnight from hnd to syd. Such short flights. Why do they need to?!
I flew this routing in biz and had a pretty good experience. Pre-departure, I asked for a glass of Champagne, and they immediately obliged and opened a bottle of Duval Leroy – not some average pre-departure Prosecco you get on other carriers. Canapes, drinks, and dinner were served, and just a few hours later, a huge and unnecessary breakfast service. On the return to JFK, service was a bit frosty and not as pleasant. Catering out of JFK was def. better. Transferring in Casablanca was pretty easy.
@james Yes I have seen that ad on a couple of my random pages.
The food looks good in the photos!
Is it me, or are those bresaola sliced THICK? Were you able to chew through it alright?
Sorry, I feel hard to understand such contradictory review. Seems like everything is acceptable but nothing is good enough.
Royal air maroc may easily be the worst airline I’ve ever flown. I literally almost cried at the casablanca airport after no less than 5 Staff REFUSED to help me locate the transit accommodation desk after RAM changed my 2.5 hour layover to 11 hours.
I vowed to never fly them so nearly a decade ago, but the price was so discounted compared to other airlines for a trip I just took (Aug 2024), that I caved and gave it another ago. BIG mistake.
I tried to upgrade to business class on my return leg to improve the experience, but the upgrade price was ridiculous, and when we boarded there was just a single passenger in the the business cabin of like 15 seats, makes no sense.
Good thing the flight had low load factor so you could change your seat.
You should try flying on the short-haul with them. Unbelievably poor.
Headline doesn’t match the copy. Subeditor’s fault?
So in summary, the RAM experience was way better than that on any US airline.
Speaking of royally bad, the first ruling royal head of state from outside of Asia that I ever met was King Hassan II of Morocco. Great US ally, but awfully brutal security services. Met him in a private library just before he was to give a quasi-public speech in the US. Some years later, it was his son — the now king — whom I ran into at a hotel in New Delhi.
When Hassan II was visiting, I had asked some of the relatives of the accompanying Moroccan diplomats assigned to the US how they usually got back and forth to Morocco and what they thought of their own flag carrier. They didn’t seem to be big fans of it but they were the typical nationalist types anyway. I don’t recall RAM flying to the US back then. But the RAM business class cabin in the photos above is much nicer now than the business class cabins on RAM would have been back then.
I hear that the wine from Azerbaijan is better than Moroccan wine. Any comment on that? ]I only drink water when traveling. Don’t even do Mountain Dew like Walz and Vance.]
We just flew this in economy a few weeks ago. Load factor was really low in economy too! Everyone scrambled for empty rows after take off, but my daughter in a chose to stay in our row with the middle seat empty between us. Service and food were ok, seats did work, at least the limited recline they offered. The big problem was trying to get miles posted to our American account after the flights. Did not post automatically, and had to request miles twice before they finally showed up.
1. RAM is a subpar airline. Their business class is a joke.
2. More selfies please.
I flew Royal Air Maroc in January from Nigeria to Kondon and I had a terrible experience. The attendants at the airport were rude, they caused a scene with a passenger who was traveling with his teenage daughter. They could have handled the situation better. I asked for assistance from a cabin crew to help lift my hand luggage into the cabin, he have me an attitude and told me to do it by myself. The flight was delayed in Nigeria as well as Casablanca. When we finally landed in London, I didn’t get one of my suit cases which almost all the passengers experienced. I traveled to London for my brother’s graduation, my shoes, toiletries, the gifts I was going to give him and loads of essentials were in the suitcase. I received my suitcase 8 days later with the zips ripped off. I sent a complaint online for compensation, it wasn’t submitting, I went to their office physically to complain, they said if I didn’t submit complaints in 3 days after flying they can’t do anything. Then, it made sense that they design the online complaint and compensation platform not work, the reason it kept bringing up error my Reference Number. No one should be treated this way. Royal Air Maroc is a TERRIBLE airline.
*London
A Moroccan friend of mine calls RAM: Le ghetto volant… the flying ghetto. That’s from a proud Moroccan!
Thanks for the review.
I share many of your thoughts and opinions regarding RAM J class. I personally have no choice to fly with them on a few routes.
Did you send a claim about the broken seat? And if yes, did you get a compensation?
I had so many issues with them in J, but I heard their customer care service tend to humiliate pax with ludicrous miles compensations.