Tag: royal

Royal Air Maroc advertises a royal treatment for its passengers, from check-in to touch down. But Seun Akioye, who recently flew with the airline to Paris, writes that his treatment was far from being royal.

The Boeing 737-700 belonging to the airliner, Royal Air Maroc (RAM) touched down at the King Muhammed International Airport, Casablanca, Morocco with a thud slightly tilting passengers inside its cabin against one another. There was a creaking noise, resounding in the cabin as if some parts of the airplane on contact with the ground was about to disintegrate. This added to the displeasure of the passengers, nobody clapped in appreciation of the pilot or his crew; nobody smiled.

The passengers were huddled into the arrival hall of a crowded, uncoordinated and unfriendly airport. Three officials stood at the door, one of them clothed in a white protective suit with a thermometer in his hand. As passengers filed in, he checked their temperature to see if any one of them carried the deadly Ebola virus. The other officials maintained a discrete distance from the passengers. There was a look of worry mixed with terror on their faces.

When a passenger passes the check, the man in the protective suit would dismiss him with a nod of his head. Health checks over, the passengers moved into the arrival hall. There were hundreds of other passengers inside, many of whom looked lost and frustrated. All the signs in the hall were written in either Arabic or French and no official spoke English.

Several long and disjointed lines of passengers waited to pass through the security check. There was no coordination and intermittently an official would appear calling the name of a passenger who was about to miss a flight and taking such through security, other passengers looked on in frustration as stone faced officials moved around rebuffing enquiries from passengers by pretending to speak only French or the indigenous Moroccan language.

The nightmare of the travellers did not begin in Casablanca, it started at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport Lagos. RAM advertises its “royal” services to would be passengers, many fell for it. When the airline came to Nigeria, it boasted: “Royal Air Maroc flies its passengers on only the best airplanes, passengers are treated to the best bouquet of hospitality and comfort while onboard Royal Air Maroc Nigeria flight….. Royal Air Maroc Nigeria has engaged the services of well trained and adequately motivated staff to attend passenger’s needs.” However, nothing could be further from the truth.

On December 3, 2015, I travelled to Paris for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties 21 and had the “misfortune” of flying on the airline. Things unravelled pretty early, the departure time to Casablanca was an unusual and inconvenient 5:20 am, which means many of the passengers had to sleep at the airport. With no facility for early travellers, many of the passengers slept on the bare floor using their luggages as pillow.  The lucky ones slept on the creaking and hard iron chairs. Ventilation was a luxury. Few could complained but all of the airport officials shared this cruel fate.

Check in began around 3: am and the officials perhaps infuriated at such an early call made life hell for the passengers especially those travelling for the first time. “Where is your birth certificate?” one yelled at a lady. You have to show me proof that you went to school like your degree certificate,” another told a lady who was going to join her husband in Brussels, Belgium. The officials also demanded to see all the documentations the passengers used in securing the visa. Some of these passengers later alleged to have parted with between N10,000 and N15,000 paid to several officials in order to board the flight.

But, the brutality of the officials paled in significance to the uncharitable flight RAM reserved for its Nigerian passengers. For an international flight, the Boeing 737 has capacity for 96 passengers in the economy class with three seats on either side of the aisle. The seats are cramped and there were no individual television sets. Instead, three overhead screens hung above the passengers. And throughout the flight, they would show only the map of the journey and that was also in French language.

Nothing about the flight followed the norm. There was over one hour delay and the pilot did not apologise nor  give explanations. The pilot conversed for a long time in French, then another language before saying two sentences in English that were inaudible. Every aviation law known to me was flouted with passengers still using mobile handsets even during taxi. Handbags were not stowed under the seat and the cabin crew would take a look at them and move on.

The crew from hell

It became clear that the Nigerian government must have begged RAM to ply the Nigerian route and not the other way. The crew seemed to detest the Nigerian passengers  as they showed no care and sometimes shouting at them. The airline it seemed, was grudgingly doing business in Nigeria and the crew of four showed no empathy nor did they pretend that part of their duty was to make the passengers happy. They were there to pass the time and would only be too glad to get rid of us in Casablanca.

Immediately after  take-off, a child began to cry. Then he wailed. For several minutes,  he was screaming, I half-feared the pilot would delay the flight as the scream had assumed a dangerous trend. In other airlines, the crew would have tried to pacify the child. A chocolate here, a toy there would surface. Not this crew. They walked past the child as he began to throw tantrums.

“Where is my mummy,” he screamed even though she was sitting beside him. The embarrassed mother tried to contain him. “Where is my baby?” the boy yelled and the plane lifted. Facilities in the plane was at best wicked. The toilet, which was tolerably clean, did not however have liquid soap. So, after doing your business, every passenger would slap on the same soap tablet leaving a part of their dirt on it.

But, the most unforgivable part was that throughout the almost five hour flight, RAM did not serve any meal. Instead, they gave the passengers a piece of croissant or cake-depending on your luck- and a tiny packet of juice.

The frustrated and hungry passengers devoured this pitiful “breakfast” which was ‘dropped’ rather than served on the tray tables of the passengers. Later, a lady passed around pestering passengers with the offer of a “very hot” coffee. As far as I could see, nobody took the bait. We were too bitter to respond.

Duty free sales contained only cigarettes and alcohol. But, even if one is tempted to buy, the scowl on the face of the seller would serve as deterrence. Immediately after the snacks were ‘dropped’ on us, the head crew, a tall big fellow went to the back of the plane collapsed three seats and slept off. His face to the roof, a part of his leg obstructing the free flow of traffic on the tiny aisle.

The flight from Casablanca to Paris was better even though it was the same small, old plane. But, at least the crew treated the almost entirely white passengers with respect and dignity and meal was served. The food, a substance resembling couscous and some funny soup was mostly abandoned by the passengers around my seat.

The smile, which was so rare on the flight from Nigeria was supplied in abundance to the Caucasian passengers. It was a great shock to me as I thought smiling was a strict taboo in the policy of RAM. But, it was evident that the airline had little regards for its Nigerian passengers and its services. Everything but pleasant reinforces the question: what is royal in Royal Air Maroc  and why do they treat Nigerians with impunity?