Our last morning in Morocco. I’ve been told to make sure that before we leave I tell you that Casablanca buses are new, comfortable, and out of keeping with anything else in the city. So now you’ve been told.
Picked our way down the roads and excuses for footpaths to the station, had a coffee, and boarded the old train to the airport. Morocco at its best this morning. We boarded carriage 1, coz that what was printed on our tickets, but was shooed out by the conductor who shrugged his shoulders and said we should be in second class.
There was an almighty crush to get out of the carriage first when we arrived at the airport. We hung back as we had plenty of time, but I did remark that maybe they knew something we didn’t. Yes they did! There was a security checkpoint at the end of the platform, and everybody had to have their luggage x-rayed and go through a metal detector. It took us 40 minutes to get off the platform and into the airport, and we weren’t even at the back end of the line.
Then it was a matter of 3, 6, 9.
We went through three security checks – one getting into the airport, the second was the usual body scan, wanding and hand luggage check after check in, but the third one was just when you thought you’d finally got to the gate when they opened all the hand luggage for a search, gave everybody a full pat down, and swabbed people for drugs. Confiscated all the liquids that people had bought airside after having them confiscated earlier. Even tipped baby formula out.
We had our passports checked 6 times. Nobody trusts anybody. For example, we went through immigration – masks off, glasses off, smile for the camera, ask where you’re going, rifle through your passport, finally stamp your passport – then 3 metres later there’s another immigration person who rifles through your passport to look for the stamp his colleague has just applied. At boarding our passport was checked twice by two different people from the same airline.
We had our boarding passes checked 9 times. One of the airline staff even insisted on seeing our ‘green card’. When we said we were tourists and didn’t have one, he insisted on seeing our ESTAs, even though they are not a physical thing or tied to the flight. He insisted on seeing the email (that could be two years old) saying our ESTA had been approved. How you do that without wifi is beyond me, but on a whim, knowing that this was Morocco, I had taken a screen shot of the email onto my phone last night. Never been asked for it before. Probably never be asked for it again.
Royal Air Maroc is hopeless. Not quite as awful as Aerolineas Argentinas, but on par with some of the Indian airlines. No online checkin. Can’t pick your seats. Can’t update your passport details on a booking. They didn’t check our vaccination status even though it’s compulsory. Only one person boarding a whole 787, and lots of yelling at passengers to get in their lines. One announcement in Arabic before boarding that nobody heard because they were in the queue waiting to be patted down. Once we’d boarded and found our seats, we were counted 9 times. Three different flight attendants each counted us three times. We needed a good laugh. Guess they kept counting until miraculously two of the numbers agreed. And of course, almost inevitably, my entertainment system was faulty.
Like all things in Morocco, Royal Air Maroc is owned by the King – presumably he doesn’t fly on it.
Arrived safely in New York, and were admitted to the country. Even though our bags were checked through to Boston, we still had to wait for our bags to be unloaded in NY (the slowest of any airport this trip) then walk them across to the next belt, and re-check them. Then it was onto the shuttle train to terminal 8, and through an organised and efficient security line (only one check!), however everybody was loudly berated by a TSA functionary for not knowing their left from their right, not knowing how to make a straight line, getting in the line with a wheelchair, and goodness knows what else.
Had a full A321 to Boston on a lovely new aircraft. Of course, when you have the best aircraft you have the shortest flight – only 39 minutes in the air. Surprisingly large number of reclining first class and leather business class seats – almost half the plane. Arrived on time, and was picked up by a surprised Brendan who had just realised that we weren’t arriving tomorrow. Glad we texted him to say we’d arrived at JFK.
Their house is only a few minutes away from the airport, so it was pretty much straight to bed.
What an adventure. In a pandemic, we managed to fly halfway around the world on four different airlines, through seven different countries, all with their own rules and procedures, and make it to our destination on time, in one piece, and without catching the virus. Now to finally meet our granddaughter …..