Dec 07, 2018: Royal Air Maroc has signed up to become the next member of Oneworld. The news was declared when the chief executives of the alliance’s 13 current member airlines gathered in New York for their year-end meeting.

Royal Air Maroc is expected to become part of Oneworld in mid-2020 when it will start flying alongside some of the biggest and best brands in the airline business. At the same time, its subsidiary Royal Air Maroc Express, will join as a Oneworld affiliate member.

Royal Air Maroc chief executive, Abdelhamid Addou, said, “We look forward to completing our flight on board speedily and smoothly so that we can offer the services and benefits of the world’s best airline alliance to our customers and across our own network as soon as possible. We will be flying alongside the finest collection of air carriers in the skies, while at the same time making it easier for people all over the world to reach our historic and beautiful part of the world.”

While southern Africa’s Comair, which flies as a franchisee of British Airways, has been a Oneworld affiliate member since the alliance was launched in February 1999, Royal Air Maroc will be Oneworld’s first full member from Africa — the only continent, apart from Antarctica, where the alliance has not had a full member.

Today, Royal Air Maroc is the largest unaligned carrier in Africa, with a transformational strategy well underway to develop it quickly into a global airline and the continent’s leader in terms of both size and quality.

The airline’s schedule will add 34 new destinations and 21 countries to the oneworld map, taking the alliance’s network to 1,069 airports in 178 countries and territories.

Under Royal Air Maroc’s ambitious five-year strategy, it plans to expand its fleet significantly, carrying 13 million customers a year across a global network serving 121 destinations in 68 countries. This will add another 15 destinations and nine countries to the alliance network, giving the alliance a total of 1,084 destinations in 187 countries and territories.