Royal Air Maroc Officially Joins Oneworld | One Mile at a Time

The "big three" global alliances can be really helpful for frequent flyers, in terms of earning and redeeming miles, and receiving consistent benefits and recognition across airlines.

However, for the most part these alliances aren't growing much anymore, as airlines instead focus on other partnerships, including joint ventures.

In December 2018 it was revealed that Royal Air Maroc would be joining the oneworld alliance, which was an exciting announcement. This is the first airline to join oneworld as a full member in six years, and is also the first African airline to join oneworld (for what it's worth, Alaska Airlines is also joining oneworld in 2021).

The oneworld alliance finally got a new member airline

It's now official - Royal Air Maroc is now a member of the oneworld alliance. In general there couldn't be a worse time for an airline to join an alliance, given that Royal Air Maroc's fleet is grounded at the moment, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to destroy global aviation.

Nonetheless it's nice to know that once planes are back in the air Royal Air Maroc will officially be in oneworld.

Royal Air Maroc has just joinedoneworld

Is this the most exciting addition to an alliance ever? No, most definitely not. Royal Air Maroc is a fairly small airline, with around 60 planes. However, they're a logical fit for the alliance:

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• Royal Air Maroc already partnered with Iberia and Qatar
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• Royal Air Maroc is oneworld's first African airline
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• Morocco is a hot travel destination right now (or was, before COVID-19)
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• Royal Air Maroc often has great fares, so this is an excellent option for earning oneworld miles
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• Royal Air Maroc releases a good amount of award availability (including in business class, where they usually have at least two seats), though it's possible that may change now that they're in oneworld
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• Most importantly they're a non-controversial addition, since many major airlines joining oneworld may cause one of the founding members to exercise their veto rights

Royal Air Maroc flies to five destinations in North America, all of which they serve out of Casablanca. They fly to:

On top of that, Royal Air Maroc operates flights to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in South America, to select destinations in the Middle East, to Beijing, and to destinations across Europe and Africa. So I'm especially excited about all the new African destinations that oneworld loyalists will have access to.

Here's their routemap (though it hasn't been updated in a while, as it doesn't reflect Boston, which was launched in June 2019):

It's also worth noting that American will start summer seasonal service between Philadelphia and Casablanca in 2020, so that will provide some connectivity to the Royal Air Maroc network. At least that was the plan - we'll see if that actually happens, in light of everything going on.

Now that Royal Air Maroc is in the oneworld alliance, it's possible to earn and redeem American AAdvantage miles for travel on the airline.

Here's the AAdvantage mileage earning chart for travel on Royal Air Maroc:

As you can see, you earn elite miles and elite qualifying dollars as a percentage of the distance flown.

It's now also possible to redeem American AAdvantage miles for travel on Royal Air Maroc, though these redemptions aren't yet possible on aa.com - you'll need to call American to book.

Since Morocco is in Africa, the award pricing will follow the standard Africa award pricing. Originating in the US you can expect to pay:

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• 40,000 AAdvantage miles one-way in economy
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• 75,000 AAdvantage miles one-way in business class

That's steep when you consider how close the US is to Morocco, though I guess that's the downside of a zone based award chart. Also, this means that you can't route from the US to Europe via Morocco on a single award, even though that may be a logical routing.

Personally I'd rather redeem 75,000 AAdvantage miles to fly from Cape Town to Doha to Dallas to Miami (mostly) in Qatar Airways Qsuites, but of course that's not particularly useful if you're visiting Morocco. 😉

RAM exclusively operates Boeing 787s on their routes to North America, though in the meantime they have both 787-8s and 787-9s, which feature different onboard products.

On Royal Air Maroc 787-8s they have fully flat business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration. It's an odd configuration, but still good when you consider how short the flights are.

Royal Air Maroc 787-8 business class

Royal Air Maroc 787-8 business class

Royal Air Maroc 787-9s feature superior reverse herringbone business class seats, in a 1-2-1 configuration. This is an excellent product.

Royal Air Maroc 787-9 business class

Royal Air Maroc 787-9 business class

All around I find Royal Air Maroc's service to be friendly, and their food is pretty good as well.

Royal Air Maroc business class catering

Royal Air Maroc business class catering

If you're connecting on Royal Air Maroc to Europe or another destination, there's another cool thing to be aware of. Royal Air Maroc's 737s feature proper business class seats, similar to what you'd find in domestic first class within the US.

Royal Air Maroc 737 business class

This is much better than what you'd usually find on an intra-Europe flight, for example, where business class is just economy with a blocked middle seat. In many cases Royal Air Maroc is a comfortable way to get to Europe as well.

Royal Air Maroc is now officially a oneworld member airline - too bad they're not actually operating at the moment. Talk about a bad time for any sort of exciting airline announcement.

While I wouldn't consider this a game changer for the alliance at large (unless you specifically fly to secondary African markets often), this is nonetheless a positive development. Royal Air Maroc serves an area that wasn't otherwise well served by oneworld.

The airline has a solid onboard product and is good about releasing award space, so I could both see myself earning and redeeming miles for travel on them.

On top of that, oneworld flyers have Alaska Airlines to look forward to as of next year.