Welcome to my part 2 of my Royal Air Maroc (Express) trip report!
This is CN-COH, my ride to RAK.
(Photo: Michael D.Barker)
Introduction
We had one day to spend at Casablanca and luckily the weather was favourable. My mum and I had a good walk around the city near our hotel and after which we returned to out hotel, picked up our luggages and made our way to the airport. Choosing this flight was ideal since the departure time was in the evening. The flight to Marakkesh was less than an hour, another option to get there is by taking the train which may be faster if you add in the time needed to check in and all that, spending a bit of time at the airport while taking the train do not require checking in and security procedure. So this depends on your travel, if you like to spend more time there, the train option would be better. For us, the flight to Marakkesh with a layover at this city is part of the booking and besides I like to add another airline to my flight logbook. This would also be the first time flying on a turboprop aircraft with my mum and I can't wait to share this trip with you. So without further ado, let's begin this trip report!
Random photos of Casablanca
Casablanca's tramway is one of the most popular transports to get around the city.
This Tramway has been in service for over 13 years, offically launched in service in December 2012.
This is Casablanca tramway's network (Photo: Transitmaps.net)
We decided to take a walk to a nearby restaurant for breakfast.
We settled for this restaurant as it was recommended on Goggle, the food quality?
My beverage - lemon mint drink
Salad
Egg omelette
This is one of the local dishes - Lamb Tagine with Prunes and Walnuts.
This is Casablanca Cathedral.
These are the shophouses along Rue Idriss Lahrizi road.
At this point, we started walking back to the hotel.
After check out
We walked to the Casa Port from the hotel which took about 15-20 minutes.
Travelling from Casa Port to CMN Airport (By Train)
This is where you purchase the train ticket.
After purchasing our tickets, we still had a bit of time to hang around before heading over to the platform.
This was the timing available for our trip to the airport.
Departure schedule
The interior of the train station
There are a few cafes available at this train station.
This is the platform where our train was waiting for us.
This train is operated by the Moroccan national rail operator - ONCF and it operates from 0600 to 2200 with a train interval of about an hour. The journey to the airport from Casa Port takes around an hour.
There is a luggage rack but because there was no space, I had to keep mine near me.
The train interior gave me the Russian vibes.
This is the airport station.
Thanks for the comfortable ride, train!
We headed to the airport terminal, the walk there took less than 10 minutes.
This train would rest for a short while before heading back to Casa Port station .
We followed the other passengers to the terminal.
There are some rent-a-car shops located at this level.
Welcome to Casablanca CMN Airport!
This airport consists of terminal 1 and 2.
(Photo: Airportmaps.com)
About this airport
This is Mohammed V International Airport based in Nouaceur Province, serving the people in Casablanca, Morocco. This airport was originally built by the United States in early 1943s and have been utilised by the Americans during the world war 2 and continue to do so until 1963 which the American military units have fully pulled out of their country by then. This airport is used for both domestic and international flights in both terminals connecting to each other. The good news for the local people is that there are plans for a new H-shaped terminal to replace this old terminals and that would mean an increase in capacity to make this airport more competitive and hopefully it would complete in time for the 2030 Fifa World Cup which this country would host along side with Spain and Portugal.
- 2 Runways - Runway 17L/35R and 17R/35L (Both are around 3.72 km in length)
- Hub for Air Arabia, Royal Air Maroc and Royal Air Maroc Express
- Operated by Airports of Morocco
This way to the terminal!
Interesting interior design lift structure
This is terminal 1
Departure hall (Upstairs), you can walk over to terminal 2.
This is Royal Air Maroc's check-in counters.
I walked around the terminal to check out what this airport has to offer.
This airport offers complimentary WiFi.
We received our boarding pass for the 2nd flight at LGW airport as we didn't have any check-in luggage, we skipped the check-in counters and head over to the airside without delay.
The self check-in kiosks.
We were fortunate that the airport was not crowded at that time.
Royal Air Maroc's domestic flight schedule
There is a pharmacy store.
On the second level, this is Air Arabia's office, I would like to try out this airline on my next return to this country.
That's how the second floor landside looks like.
Welcome to Terminal 2!
Terminal 1 is dedicated to Royal Air Maroc while Terminal 2 is for other airlines.
Check-in information
Terminal 2 departure hall is bigger.
It is certainly more spacious in this departure hall.
International flight departure takes place at this terminal.
There are more seating areas in the landside for terminal 2 compared to terminal 1.
Domestic Departure Airside (Terminal 1)
This is the seating area near the bus gate.
There was another flight to Marakkesh departing not long before our flight and it was operated by a Boeing 737-800.
Gate D8 was our assigned departure gate.
This was how crowded the gate area is. I recommend you to grab your bite at the landside as choices of food is very limited over this side.
The airport buses are parked outside so all we need to do is to board the bus once we were cleared to head out of the door.
After a short delay, we were finally on our way.
What a beautiful day for flying!
This was our ride, CN-COH. (A 13+ Years Old ATR-72-600)
Look at how low the aircraft is. This was also my first time flying with my mum on a turboprop.
View of the tarmac
This is Air Arabia's Airbus A320.
Another Royal Air Maroc's Boeing 737-800 in sight with a fellow passenger looking on.
My ride: CN-COH
Beautiful livery, isn't it?
CN-COH is the registration of this aircraft. (CN tells you that the aircraft is registered in Morocco).
My flight route: CMN-RAK
Distance: 200km (Appromiximately)
Average Flight Time (for ATR-72): 40 minutes
Airlines flying on this route: Royal Air Maroc and Royal Air Maroc Express
My seat: 11A
Date of departure: 18th February 2026
Airline: Royal Air Maroc
Flight: AT413
Aircraft: ATR-72-600
Registration: CN-COH
Flight Route: CMN-RAK
Terminal: 1
Gate: D8
Seat: 11A
Load: 100%
Flight Time: 40 minutes
Actual Flight Time: 41 minutes
Schedule Departure: 1605
Boarded the bus: 1532
Started taxiing: 1607
Take Off: 1635
Schedule Arrival: 1710
Actual Arrival: 1716
Departure Runway: 35R
Departure Weather: Partially Cloudy
Arrival Runway: 28
Arrival Weather: Clear
My Flight Experience
Casablanca airport terminals are quite ordinary and there isn't much to do over there but to just sit around have a coffee or two at the land side. I am sure that will change once the new terminals come online! For the boarding procedure, it was a bus gate experience and I was fortunate that the weather was great as at that time, there was quite a bit of bad weather in the European side, so it was nice to get away from the cold and dull U.K weather and enjoy the sun.
Once on board, I had a struggle walking through the narrow aisle with both of our carry-ons getting to our assigned seats. For the cabin crew in charge of our flight, one of them was standing at the door welcoming us while the other was assisting another passenger and that was a good first impression. Once everyone was settled, it wasn't long before our engines were started and we were soon on our way. We taxied to a holding point and we stayed there for a while. The captain made an announcement of it but it was in local language so had no idea what happened. As a result of the delay, we took off about 30 minutes behind schedule and flew for 40 minutes across this beautiful weather. For the take off, it was quite noisy with the PW127M engines working hard to lift us off to our assigned flight level. It's been a while since I last flew on this aircraft model and I didn't remember it was that noisy but it doesn't matter because my mum was feeling alright, that's the most important thing. In addition, once we reached our flight level, the noise was more bearable.
For this flight, there was no inflight service but my mum and I played a few rounds of 'Daidee - Big 2' card game and of course, I enjoyed some view along the way. Not a surprise, we landed about 6 minutes behind schedule and by the time we collected our luggage and at the airport landside, it was close to 1750 hrs.
Welcome on board!
Business Class
(Same seats as the economy class)
- Row 1 to 3 (12 seats)
- 32 inches of legroom space
- 18 inches of seat width
- Seat recline up to 2 inches
- No IFE Entertainment system or Wifi installed on this aircraft
- No Charging ports
You can check out Live & Let's Fly review of the business class review over here.
Business Class seat with the 32 inches as the main difference
(Photo: Live & Let's Fly)
Economy Class
- Row 4 to 19
- 30 inches of legroom space
- 18 inches of seat width
- Can recline up to 2 inches
- No USB charging ports
- No Inflight Entertainment including Wifi
The 30 inches of legroom space in economy class.
Inflight magazine, safety card and disposal bag are placed in the literature holder.
These seats are actually not bad in terms of comfort.
For short flights, this seat product is acceptable.
These are the last rows of the cabin.
View of the front seat
Tight legroom space for me.
Tray table being extended
This is what you see with the foldable tray table extended.
We were able to place our personal belonging in the legroom space in front of us.
The overhead panel
Speaker, seatbelt and no electronic sign display
Along with it comes with a pair of adjustable air con vents, reading lights and the call button for the cabin crew.
View from my seat
Do note: there is no inflight entertainment on this aircraft and no complimentary snack and beverages on this flight.
Window view photos
The view of the overwing engine
(Pratt & Whitney 127M engine)
We taxied past a Turkish Airlines aircraft.
I would have preferred a view of the front view of the engines but at the time of booking, the seats in the front rows were not available.
This is Royal Air Maroc's Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the airline's old livery.
We were at the main taxiway.
Another look of this old livery, do you prefer this livery or the current?
The current livery
We were reaching the threshold.
Rolling down the runway!
Off we go in a very noisy take off!
Fortunately, the noise level lowered as our aircraft was cruising in this clear weather.
At this point, we started our descent.
Making a left turn means a better view for us!
Looking forward to visit this popular city.
The sun was starting to set.
Hardly any bumps during our descent.
I wonder how is it like travelling by train. Whatever it is, flying is still my preference.
We were lining up for descend into RAK airport.
Some of the private properties spotted during our descent.
We were on final approach, with our aircraft configured for landing.
Less than a minute to go before touch down.
Let's see how good the landing is.
We touched down quite firmly but it wasn't too bad.
Our taxi to the terminal took around 6 minutes.
Some familiar low cost carriers from Europe were spotted.
I would like to try Ryanair's Boeing 737 MAX 8200 (High Density configured 737 MAX 8) in the nera future.
This is it for our flight. For us, we made our way to our accommodation while for this aircraft, it would return back to Casablanca later that day as flight AT412.
My flight summary
Welcome to Marrakesh Menara Airport!
This is the entrance to the terminal building.
These aerobridges are connected to the terminal building.
We took about 10 minutes to get to the landside.
We were greeted with some fantastic photos of the city.
The luggage carousel area
The landside
I like the interior design of this airport.
This glass rooftop structure is really nice.
A few more photos of the airport interior.
Between this airport and Casablanca, I know which airport I prefer.
I managed to spot the lights before leaving.
Sunset was shining upon the terminal building.
Beautiful airport structure, don't you agree?
This was where we waited for our ride.
Along our way to our Airbnb apartment
There is this incident in which our Airbnb accommodation was shown wrongly in the map and it took a while for us to figure out how to get to our destination. I decided to pay the driver extra for his effort and thanks to him, we managed to finally found the place. However, due to some issues with the apartment, we decided to move and stay in the hotel instead. This was the first time it happened to me and I take this as an experience. Fortunately for us, our Airbnb hosts were friendly and understanding and so after some discussion, the host's wife drove us to our hotel and I managed to sort out this issue with them later on. In the end, we were happy with the outcome and it was a lesson learnt for me. As for my mum, in the end, she was happy and that matters most!
Our original accommodation was located in one of the flats in this building.
We shifted to this hotel Ibn Batouta, located in the city area.
Our room offered this view.
One of the many mosques in this city, located near our hotel.
For most parts of our trip over here, we did walking.
The local market
This is the Koutoubia Mosque
Walking along the narrow aisle
We spotted this poor donkey doing labour work.
Some delicious meals we had during our time over there.
This is Moroccan famous pastry dessert.
This is the Souk which offers plenty of shops that sells carpets, lanterns, leather good, souvernirs, spices and clothing.
This is the park near Menara Hall, along Boulevard Mohammed VI.
Somehow we managed to walk across the city to another part of the city. My mum and I can walk a lot!
Sunset view from our hotel.
That's all for my part 2! Stay tuned for my part 3, coming up soon.
A preview to my next blog post: Hotel Ibn Batouta @ Marrakesh
My ratings
Airline Website/Mobile App: 4/5
Airport Experience (Casablanca - CMN Airport): 3/5
Inflight Service: 3/5
Seat Comfort: 3/5
Inflight Entertainment: 0/5
Cabin Ambiance: 4/5
Cabin Condition: 4/5
Cleanliness: 5/5
Inflight Meal/Beverage: 0/5
Punctuality: 5/5
Total Score: 31/50
Percentage: 62%
Conclusion
This is an aircraft fitted with basic amenities on this Royal Air Maroc's subsidiary, RAM Express to help support the parent airline transport passengers on domestic flights whether its from a connecting flight or from the local people flying within the country. The parent airline has its own flights within the domestic market and with strong competition from Air Arubia, Royal Air Maroc Express helps to counter the competition with good offers and more importantly the ability to earn points thanks to the parent airline's member to the oneworld alliance and of course partnership with other airlines outside the alliance.
While there is nothing to shout about with the aircraft's amenities, I am glad to be able to enjoy this smooth flight with my mum. I flew together with her on many flights including a chartered flight on a Dash-8 long time ago ( I remember we flew across the Canyon in the U.S on a tour and my body didn't react well in that turbulent flight on the aircraft). Would I recommend choosing the flying option on this CMN-RAK route? If you are transiting in from another flight, yes but if you are staying in the city of Casablanca, I would recommend the train option as you won't be inconvenient by the following: waiting at the airport, the hassle of going through security check and queueing up to check in at the counter and wasting the longer time travelling to the airport than travelling to the train station. In addition, since the distance between both cities is around 245 km, the train ride, it takes an average of around 2 hours 40 minutes but for the flight, it takes around 30-40 minutes depending whether its the Boeing 737-800 or ATR-72 flying you to your destination. So if you add on the inconvenience for the flight option, the time taken altogether might end up be around the same time you take the train, so it depends on you.
Thanks for reading and have a good one!
Charles Ryan
With that said, the journey continues - see you in my next blog post!
For the previous trip report (RAM - Boeing 737-800 LGW-CMN Part 1), click here
Coming up after the hotel review, part 3 of my Royal Air Maroc Adventure: RAK-CMN on the airline's Boeing 737-800
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