Royal Air Maroc Dreamliner JFK-CMN and maybe connect to RAK
 

Considering booking Royal Air Maroc JFK-CMN but reviews online are mostly horrible. Has anyone flown this route in the last year with better experience (on the Dreamliner)?

On the way back, there is actually a very nice connection RAK-CMN-JFK but with the horrible reviews on frequent delays, cancellations and no help from the airline on rebooking, I'm thinking just using the train instead from RAK-CMN to eliminate the risk of missing the international connection.

Also thinking of not checking in luggage to avoid lost bags.

Am I being overly paranoid? Will appreciate any recent experience.

Leaving from JFK to Morocco and trying to maximize time in Morocco so this seems the shortest route (if it goes as scheduled) instead of going thru a hub in Europe.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Looking at your other threads it appears you're flying out of JFK and going only to Morocco. I asked because there are a number of airlines that fly in & out of both Fes & Marrakech so the only train journey you'd need would be one, between the 2 cities. Presumably you've looked at a map and know that Casablanca (CMN) is more or less midway between the 2 on the train.

You can fly into most European cities and change to various low fare airlines to & from Fes & Marrakech. The trouble with that is that it'll likely take as long as either of your current plans.

The other possibility is Air France, for instance, seems to fly to both cities and JFK, of course. Trying an itinerary from JFK into Fes then back from Marrakech I get a message to call their reservation number. You may want to do that and see what they have to offer.

The truth is flying into Casa (CMN) on Royal Air Maroc is probably the easiest of all. There's a train from the airport to the main station in Casa (Casa Voyageurs) and you can go either direction from there, to Marrakech or Fes. Then just back and on to the other. Then back to Casa to go home. While the RAM flights seem to always be the most expensive, they are direct which saves time and how bad can it be? There's a great deal to be said for convenience.

Otherwise, confining your 10 days to either just north from Casa (Fes, Rabat, Meknes, Chefchaouen), or south from Casa (Marrakech, Essaouira, Taroudant) would make a nice trip too.

Question about Royal Air Maroc -- I'm thinking of a trip this Spring and see that RAM is the only nonstop carrier between JFK and CMN. Reading reviews of the airline, however, I understand that it's not possible to reserve seats until check in, and it appears that there is no online check-in in the US. Is that still true?

While seat reservations may not be guaranteed, I do like to have them in hand long before we depart on a trip.

Haven't flown it recently, but in the past RAM was just fine.

I had no idea about not being able to reserve seats in advance...that's a bummer. Can you do it if checking early online? Or only at the airport right before the flight?

xyz,
From what I've found out, there is no online checking in the US and no seat assignment prior to check in! So the only advice is to get to the airport early (see my post on this topic on TA) to request preferred seats.

I wonder if it's possible to have seats assigned for the RETURN flight when checking in for the outbound flight.... that might make it a tiny bit better, though not much.

Paule

xyz,
As you see, there is no on-line checking from any US airport so you can't reserve seats until you get to the airport:

http://www.royalairmaroc.com/us-en/E...nline-check-in

Wonderful, funky airline. On our flight to Casa from JFK, the lights for our seats were controlled by the seat behind us. Honest. The flight attendants pleasantly made the adjustments.

Flights were on time, no lost luggage. Return flight was only half full, so had to room to lie down and nap.

We'd heard the horror stories as well, but direct flights and acceptable fares made the choice easy (We always try to fly non-stop).

We are considering them only because they are the only non-stop flight from this area. Normally we fly from Newark, but any such option would mean a long (8-10 hrs) layover in Europe, and that sounds terrible.

Now, getting to JFK early with rush hour traffic...sounds almost funny :)

xyz,
The on-line check in is now available in New York and Washington (see above link), so it seems like the policy regarding US has been loosened. You can see that they are now on the list of airports that allow on-line check in (see the link in my earlier post).

Good news! You don't have to get to JFK early now!!

That is wonderful news! Thanks :-)