RAM says the decision will be implemented gradually so as not to disrupt the company’s daily program.
Rabat – In response to the wide-range of complaints from customers, Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc (RAM) has announced that it will be reducing the number of seats on its Boeing 737-800 flights to increase passenger’s comfort.
The operation, a response to the sustained criticism the company has received in the past months on various social media platforms, is designed to appeal to passengers in the economy class, some of whom have often complained about the company’s dismal treatment of economy passengers.
35 flights will be affected by the measure, according to the company. It added that the decision will be implemented gradually so as not to disrupt the company’s daily program of departures and arrivals.
RAM’s Boeing 737-800 flights current consist of 159 seats in the economy class and 12 in the business class. The planned operation seeks to remove 12 seats in the economy class, so that after implementation every RAM Boeing 737-800 will have 147 seats in the economy class and still 12 in the business category.
Following his trenchant criticism of RAM, whose flights he has consistently used in his latest trips between Casablanca and London, the British ambassador to Rabat, Thomas Reilly, has been widely credited with impacting the move by RAM.
The British diplomat is extremely active on social media and the visibility of his repeated complaints—he has a large following on Twitter, for example— about the comfort level in RAM flights meant the company could no longer ignore its customers’ reported irritation, according to some reports.
In a tweet on June 26 last year, Ambassador Reilly complained about his London-Casablanca RAM flight taking “more than an hour late.” In the same tweet, the British official also lamented that, upon landing in Casablanca, they had to wait for “nearly an hour” before the flight started unloading their luggage. “It is not surprising if people get irritated,” he said.
On June 12 this year, complaining about another London-Casablanca flight, Reilley fumed at how a dismal and “uncomfortable” experience onboard a “cramped” flight.
He tweeted, “Just landed in Casablanca after a really cramped and uncomfortable flight on RAM. Is it just me or have they reduced the leg-room between the seat rows?”
