Royal Air Maroc plans expansion on Nigerian routes, celebrates two years of Oneworld Alliance
Royal Air Maroc, the Northern African carrier has described Nigeria as a very important market to its growth, saying that the airline has a big plan to further entrench its operations in the country despite the teething challenges occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted activities not just in the industry, but in the global economies.
This is as the airline celebrated its two years of joining the Oneworld Alliance, thereby making it the 14th carrier and the only African airline on the network of the alliance.
Speaking with aviation journalists in Lagos over the weekend, Mr. Karim Benchekroun, the Chief Finance Officer, Royal Air Maroc, said that Nigeria is a big market for the world and the airline’s alliance.
Benchekroun explained that the airline has big customer base in Nigeria, stressing that many Nigerians fly into Casablanca in Morocco and also connect to other cities across the world through the country.
He lamented that COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the growth of the industry in 2020 and 2021, but said the industry had rebounded to 70 per cent of activities in 2019 and over 100 per cent of 2020.
He explained that the airline, which operates daily scheduled flights to Lagos from its base in Casablanca to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos suspended its operations to the Federal Capital Territory (F.C.T) in Abuja due to low passenger traffic, but reiterated that the airline would not hesitate to the city once the traffic improves.
Besides, he unveiled the plans by the airline to attract more Nigerian travellers to Morocco for tourism and business.
On its Oneworld Alliance, he emphasised that the journey began in 2018, but eventually became a member of the alliance in April 2020.
Benchekroun stated that the essence of joining the alliance was to give the travelling public more options and easier choice, stressing that through its alliance, clients would have access to over 650 lounges worldwide.
According to him, members in the alliance fly into 1,000 destinations worldwide, while through its membership, members in the alliance had further penetrated 30 destinations in Africa.
He said: “It took us a lot of efforts to be a part of this big alliance. We have only three African airlines as parts of the world’s alliances and Royal Air Maroc is the first airline to join the Oneworld alliance from Africa. We have added 30 more destinations to the Oneworld Alliance through our membership.
“The best alliance to join for us is Oneworld. Oneworld did not have any member in Africa until now and since we joined, the economic benefits to the airlines and the travelling public has increased. Our goal was and it is still to compete with other airlines. Our aim is to give more benefits to our passengers and airline.”
Robert Gurney, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Oneworld Alliance said that the membership of Royal Air Maroc to the alliance was very strategic.
He said the membership of the airline had further swelled its destinations by 30 on the continent, promising that this would also be beneficial to the Nigerian travellers and market.
