Royal Air Maroc will join oneworld to be the third Arab airline member, besides Royal Jordanian and Qatar Airways by mid 2020. Its regional subsidiary Royal Air Maroc Express will join as a oneworld affiliate member at the same time. Its election as a oneworld member was announced as the chief executives of the alliance’s 13 current member airlines gathered in New York for their year-end Governing Board meeting. From then, the recruits will offer the full range of oneworld customer services and benefits, with the one million plus members of Royal Air Maroc’s Safar Flyer loyalty programme able to earn and redeem rewards on all oneworld member airlines, and with its top tier members able to use the alliance’s more than 650 airport lounges worldwide.
While Comair has been a oneworld affiliate member since the alliance launched in February 1999, Royal Air Maroc will be oneworld’s first full member from Africa – the only continent, apart from Antarctica – where the alliance has, until now, had no full member. It will also be the alliance’s first new full member airline signed since 2012. Royal Air Maroc is today the largest unaligned carrier in Africa – with a transformational strategy well underway to develop it quickly into a truly global airline and the continent’s leader in terms of both size and quality. It carried 7.3 million passengers last year on a fleet of 55 aircraft, with a network that currently connects its Casablanca base with 94 destinations in 49 countries across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North and South America, including oneworld hubs Doha, London Heathrow, Madrid, Moscow Domodedovo, New York JFK and Sao Paulo.