Rabat – Moroccan airline Royal Air Maroc (RAM) announced the signing of a codeshare agreement with British Airways.
Under the agreement, new routes across Morocco including Casablanca and Agadir will open with more flexibility.
A codeshare agreement allows two or more airlines to share the same flight.
The agreement will also offer flights with flexibility between London Heathrow and Marrakech, RAM said in a statement.
Codeshare flights will operate from February 20. Customers have the chance to start booking tickets since February 13.
The codeshare is the first agreement of its kind for British Airways with an African airline, Maghreb Arab Press (MAP) reported.
The deal will give British Airways customers “more choice of services between Heathrow and Marrakech,” the press release from RAM said.
It will also provide daily access toRoyal Air Maroc’s hub in Casablanca, currently not directly served by British Airways.
Casablanca is also the perfect hub for connections onto other Royal Air Maroc destinations, including a range of African destinations from Abidjan, to Freetown in Sierra Leone, and Morocco’s Agadir.
British Airways’ Head of Alliances, Chris Fordyce, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Morocco’s flagship airline, Royal Air Maroc to create our first African codeshare agreement.”
The agreement, according to Fordyce, will also connect the company’s “extensive global network to new destinations in Africa.”
RAM’s CEO Hamid Addou also commented on the new agreement, saying that the deal confirms RAM’s “ major role as a key player connecting Africa to the rest of the world.”
“We are very pleased with this cooperation which will foster our traffic development and ease the access to both our companies’ networks on both ends,” Addou said.
He added that the agreement will also offer passengers access to additional “destinations across Great Britain and a better customer journey, through optimized connections and end-to-end check-in operations, with international assistance at airports served by the two companies.”
Both RAM and British Airways customers will be able to “earn loyalty points when flying on either carrier,” he stressed.
In addition to its agreement with British Airways, RAM also signed a codeshare deal with American Airlines last year.
