A United Airlines flight to Marrakesh made an unscheduled stop in Casablanca, creating quite a problem for passengers and crew onboard.
United Airlines’ Newark–Marrakesh Flight Diverts To Casablanca After Weather Disruption
Daichovo on FlyerTalk shared a rather witty but poignant “trip report” of his flight from Newark (EWR) to Casablanca (CMN) on United Airlines, an unplanned stop due to poor weather in Marrakesh (RAK).
Just got finished UA’s inaugural flight EWR-CMN! Upon approach to RAK (actual destination) we circled a couple times and couldn’t land due to weather (poor visibility) so pilot rerouted us to land at CMN (all planes for the previous 2 hour did). There we sat on the tarmac…almost 7 hours. They wouldn’t let us get off. It sounded like the problem was more on the CMN side, the pilot was clearly frustrated. He said in 28 years of flying he never encountered something like this. They were trying to get fuel but no one was communicating and they were upset about the fact that UA has no presence at CMN unlike the other rerouted flights, and immigration stuff for passengers.
Finally:
- Our plane’s whole team timed out.
- They had to fly in what was supposed to be today’s RAK-EWR crew (they cancelled that flight completely) as passengers on Royal Air Maroc.
- Clusterf**k for about two hours while they figured out how to process their passports, since they arrived CMN as passengers, but flew out as crew.
- They just threw caution to the wind and bussed everyone to the terminal, no real checks, told us to get something to eat bc they ran out of food/drinks. I think a couple people left the airport completely but most stayed to fly back.
- We got back on the plane but it started pouring rain so we had to sit on the tarmac again
- The passengers and crew were awesome and stayed calm/laughing throughout. Eventually, we got into RAK a full 12 hours late.
UA offered me $225; should I try to argue for more? I’m 1K if that helps, and this was in economy class. The flight was actually pretty expensive because I booked it last minute and I was trying to get an eligible upgrade fare.
A Difficult Position For United Airlines
The weather is beyond United’s control and it sounds like United did the best it could in this situation. Diverting to an airport where you have no ground presence is tough and it is not surprising that passengers sat for hours as the airport figured how to handle the situation.
Kudos to United for flying in a rescue crew as soon as possible. The flight did ultimately land in RAK 10 hours later at 10:25 pm, which probably also represented United’s first-ever domestic flight in Morocco:
As for compensation, the traveler above was on a three-day trip to Marrakesh and lost a full day. Certainly, the delay was not in United’s control, and in that sense, the $225 was already generous. Still, he complains the delay shortened what was already a very short trip into a trip that was not worthwhile. In that sense, I would have asked for a “trip in vain” refund, which would have included 1.) sending him back on the first available flight (since his trip had become vain) and 2.) refunding him the money for his ticket.
That’s an old-school, but rarely used policy that seeks to make passengers whole when events beyond their control ruin their trip. It’s fair enough to say United should be on the hook for poor weather in Morocco, but “trip in vain” is still a thing and may have provided one remedy for passengers who may have chosen to abandon their entire trip based on the prolonged delay.
CONCLUSION
Weather delays are annoying and in this case, poor weather in Marrakesh forced a United flight to divert to an airport it does not serve. That complicated things, but the airline responded as best that it could under the circumstances. My biggest takeaway is that requesting a “trip in vain” refund may be worthwhile in cases like this…it does not hurt to ask.
image: @USAmbMorocco / X
I’ve done the drive from CMN to Marrakech many times. It’s unfortunate that they could not get them off the aircraft and processed there onto a bus. The drive, on a very modern highway, is three hours tops and very easy to do. While I realize this is an entirely new market for UA – you have got to have some sort of contingencies set up in country for these moments. Both CMN and RAK often have morning visibility issues and diversions happen as a result – so it’s not as if this was some sort of outlier moment.
The food along that highway is also delicious.
This is why you don’t visit 3rd world countries.
If diversions due to rain make you a “3rd world country,” then DFW must have the lowest HDI on Earth.
That’s what Canada and the US think about the US
Welcome to Morocco. United isn’t responsible for the weather, or responsible for the incompetence of the Moroccan authorities. I’m not sure this should be compensable at all.
For the veteran Boeing 767-300, it was also an unexpected inaugural flight, due to the unpredictability of Mother Nature…
Interestingly, DL’s flight 186 from ATL which also left on Dec 20, arrived on time in RAK
also, this wasn’t the inaugural flight for UA on EWR-RAK
Yep, following an 8-hour and 1-minute flight operated by one of DELTA’s veteran Boeing 767-400s…
Having worked for over 40 years as an Airport Operations Manager at a large (UK) airport which very often handles flight diversions, I can quite confidently state that 90+% of those airlines that do, unfortunately, have to divert away from their original intended destinations, do so knowing that their operational management has pre-agreed and pre-arranged contingency plans in place at their flight plan filed alternate airports. This looks to be a failure (initially) by UAL which then snowballed into other local delays, clearance issues and all the other practical operational needs (pre-agreed fuel supplier, catering, pax and crew clearance, etc etc). Cannot comment on the compensation side of this story as I’m only aware of the EU regs and not the US regs. Better prepared next time maybe…✈️
Appreciate your comment, Ralph!
AA had 763s younger than DL and UA’s 764s but I don’t think either DL or UA have any 764s that are older than any of their 763s.
DL’s flight was scheduled to land – and did – several hours earlier than UA’s flight and bad weather appears to have moved in after DL’s flight departed back to ATL
still, had to be frustrating for those UA passengers to be not be on the one of two flights on US carriers that operated even close to schedule that day.
When will UAL add Casablanca as new Africans destinations? If UAL can make money on serving Marrakesh, why wouldn’t UAL connect Casablanca to either Newark or Washington Dulles?