Review: Royal Air Maroc Business Class (787-9 v2)

For the first leg of travel on my Morocco & Portugal 2025 trip, we chose to fly Royal Air Maroc business class from Montreal to Casablanca. This was the simplest and shortest routing to get to Morocco coming from Edmonton, and also gave me a reason to use up some of my British Airways Avios points, as I’ve been more reliant on Aeroplan than anything else in the past year.

Read on for my experience with the hard and soft product of Royal Air Maroc’s newer Boeing 787-9 business class on the Dreamliner twin-jet.

Booking Royal Air Maroc Business Class

Business Class	Aircraft	Route	Flight Duration
Royal Air Maroc 209	Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (twin-jet)	Montreal (YUL) to Casablanca (CMN)	6 Hours 40 Minutes

I booked one way tickets on Royal Air Maroc business class from Montreal to Casablanca using British Airways Avios for a total cost of 62,000 Avios + $409.70 CAD in taxes and fees, per person. While seat selection was not possible at the time of booking, I was immediately and easily able to seat select on the Royal Air Maroc website under “Select Seats”, without logging in, creating an account, or downloading the mobile app.

As opposed to seat selection, advance meal selection did not work. About one week before the flight, we were prompted for meal selection via email. However, the link did not work as intended, instead redirecting to a generic login page on the RAM website. This login to access my booking didn’t work. I tried creating a RAM account and linking my booking and then trying to log in and find meal selection that way on both desktop and mobile, but was again unsuccessful.

If you’re curious, I earned most of the Avios points required to book this flight through the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card and the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card. The latter has bonuses as high as 55,000 Avion points, which can be transferred 1:1 (or higher during promotional transfer periods) to British Airways Avios, getting you most of the way to booking a flight such as this.  

Ground Experience 

Departure – National Bank Mastercard Lounge, YUL

We arrived at Montreal International Airport from an Air Canada connecting flight with about 4 hours to kill before our Royal Air Maroc flight. After printing our boarding passes, I noticed we were entitled to the Gate 57 lounge, which is actually the Air France Lounge, a Plaza Premium lounge. 

However, I figured the National Bank Lounge, which is bigger and is located directly beside our Gate (53), would be a better spot for us. After a short 10 minutes on the waitlist, we were admitted thanks to my National Bank World Elite Mastercard. 

I had really few complaints when it came to this lounge. There was plenty of seating despite the busyness of the lounge, and it boasts a fantastic view of the tarmac throughout, which is always appreciated. 

They had a fairly decent selection of alcohol, especially local options from Quebec.

We had a small snack at the lounge, but saved our stomachs for the red-eye flight as I was sure they would feed us dinner quite quickly after takeoff so that people could sleep. 

The food was all decent, especially the meatballs and desserts. The oatmeal cookies were soft and chewy, as they should be.

My only complaint is the noise levels. When the lounge got to its fullest around 8:00 PM, it was rather loud and difficult to hear anything. But that’s really a function of the open space and the large amount of seating. Nonetheless, it was still a nice place to relax and wait during our modest layover.

Boarding Process

While I didn’t let it soil the rest of my experience, this boarding process for Royal Air Maroc was objectively amongst the worst I’ve ever had, at least for business class.

Even though we arrived at the gate nearly 15 minutes early, the boarding process at the gate was pure chaos for both economy and business class passengers. The piling of passengers in a disorganized fashion into the multiple boarding lines was reminiscent of what my later experiences with Moroccan traffic would be like, as detailed in my Guide to Transportation in Morocco.

Business class passengers were boarded first, as is standard practice for business class. However, there was no typical passenger bridge; instead, we boarded onto a bus gate (also known as a Mobile Lounge or Passenger Transport Vehicle) with economy class. The bus ended up being extremely crowded, so we had to file to the back and wait for it to fill up. 

While boarding business class passengers first is standard, with bus gates, the result was that business class passengers ended up waiting the longest amount of time on the back of a hot, crowded bus. Then, when the PTV finally connected to the plane, we were last to board the plane after the economy class passengers. 

After reading another flight review of this product on this same route, it seems there is typically a separate “VIP van” to take business class passengers directly to the plane. However, this did not happen on our specific flight, and the result was a rather inconvenient boarding experience. In hindsight, I would have stayed in the lounge and shown up to board the plane closer to the end of the boarding time frame.

Deplaning Process

Deplaning was a much smoother experience than boarding. We were able to leave the plane from the front passenger entry door, and were escorted down to a separate van for business class passengers that took us immediately to the airport.

I imagine this is what the boarding experience was also intended to be like, but for whatever reason was not feasible at Montreal airport for our departure.

Cabin Arrangement

Royal Air Maroc has configured their Boeing 787-9 business cabin in a modern staggered 1-2-1 layout. Each window seat faces towards the exterior of the plane, and all middle seats face inward towards the midpoint of the plane, as opposed to a staggered arrangement present on many aircraft. Each seat has direct aisle access.  

Our particular plane on this flight was a v2 of the 787-9, with the v1 the more commonly flown plane by Royal Air Maroc. This v2 configuration has 16 business class seats and 28 premium economy seats as opposed to v1 which has 26 business class seats and no premium economy seats.

Although I was expecting a purple color throughout the cabin as in the pictures I’d seen online of this product (which I later realized are the v1 of the 787-9), I was surprised to see a more neutral design featuring grays, blues, and blacks. In fact, I noticed this was the exact same seat as on WestJet business class.

 It was a clean and modern aesthetic for a business class cabin. Honestly, I was impressed. 

Because all the seats had the same orientation without any stagger, seat selection in this cabin wasn’t as important. The usual applies regarding avoiding galleys and bathrooms, so you may want to avoid seats in row 7. 

Notably, 1A and 1K are bulkhead seats with footwells that extend beneath the bulkhead storage module, offering slightly more foot space than standard. On the flip side, seats 1D,1F, 2D, and 2F have no overhead bins as the flight crew storage compartment is located above them.

With that in mind, we selected seats 3D and 3F and were happy with our choice.

Seat

The Royal Air Maroc Business Class seats on the Boeing 787-9 v2 are Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seats arranged in a reverse-herringbone pattern. Each seat has 46” of pitch and 22” of width with 180° recline.

The seat was modern, clean, and polished. It felt very comfortable to sit in, with an abundance of space and an adjustable headrest. 

There was also an abundance of stowage space around the seat, with two closable compartments on the side console. One of the compartments contains an entertainment remote with a USB port and headphone jack. There was also a regular 110V outlet available inside. The other compartment opens up to reveal a vanity mirror on the underside of the lid. 

At the back of the console is a reading light with a slot to hold reading material. It was the perfect size to hold my 14” laptop.

On the side of the console was a touchscreen with seat controls for reclining, lie flat mode, reading, and overhead lights, etc.

On the aisle side of the seat was an armrest, which also opened up to reveal more stowage space.

The seat offered a decent amount of privacy from your seatmate if desired, as you could completely block off the view with a sliding privacy screen. Even without the screen, there was moderate separation from your neighbor as both side consoles separate passengers to about an arm’s length.

The tray table was well-designed and felt solid.  It doesn’t stow away completely, but simply locks into an elevated position when closed, providing extra knee space. It was opened with a simple sliding mechanism whereby you push inward on the tray to unlock it, slide it out, and flip it over.

Overall, I was impressed and pleasantly surprised with the quality of the seat on Royal Air Maroc’s business class. Everything was well designed with good functionality and aesthetics. The seat felt spacious and comfortable to sit in, with tons of stowage space and compartments galore. The hard product is definitely not holding this airline back in this regard.

Bed

The seat was easy enough to convert into a fully flat bed using the seat console controls. Unfortunately, the provided pillow was flat and akin to sleeping on a piece of Kleenex. I personally always find the Super Diamond seats a tad uncomfortable to sleep in as they are rather constrictive on the feet and lower body, similar to a mummy-style sleeping bag.

Nonetheless, I was fatigued enough that I was able to doze off for a few hours of sleep on this flight so as not to feel too terrible on arrival in Casablanca. 

Amenity Kit

The amenity kit came in a white cloth bag and was waiting for us on our seats when we boarded. It was co-branded with Nectarome.

The amenity kit was decently supplied, including socks, an eye mask, a dental kit, lip balm, soothing face mist, face cream, and multi-purpose dry oil.

There were no earplugs, and more importantly, no slippers included with the seat, which I always appreciate having for comfort and to not have to put shoes on and off again multiple times. 

Bathroom

The business class bathroom was a fairly standard size, with a modest amount of standing room.

There weren’t any particular amenities of note above what is standard: paper towel, kleenex, hand washing soap and a moisturizing hand cream.

Dining

The service started out a little sluggish to be honest. It took quite some time before we received a lemon and mint welcome drink, at which time we were provided with menus,  and then a good deal of time after that before a flight attendant came to take our meal selections. 

The combined dining and beverage menu was as follows. There was a decent assortment of both American and Moroccan cuisine available for selection.

Towel service was done just before dinner at around 11:00 PM Montreal time, or about an hour and ten minutes after departure.

Dinner

The service started off with a few hand snacks of biscuits and salted nuts, along with a glass of the Laurent-Perrier Brut champagne that I ordered.

This was followed by the canapes: melon and watermelon skewer with mint, goat cheese crostini with pistachio, and salmon roll.

All of the canapes were great. The goat cheese crostini was a highlight and was really tasty.

This was soon followed by the appetizer of Thai butternut cream soup. It was light and creamy, but a little spicy.

The butter for the bread was indeed soft and spreadable, always a promising sign for a business class meal service.  

Following the appetizer I had the chicken breast with potato fingers and baked zucchini. 

This entree was excellent. The chicken and sauce was good, flavorful and tender. The potatoes were excellent. I was impressed with the meal quality.  

Following the entrée, a cheese and vegetable platter was served, followed by a dessert of chocolate and caramel tart.

The cheese and vegetables were just okay, probably the most mediocre part of the dinner service. Although I did enjoy the goat cheese. The chocolate dessert was great. 

Service was concluded with a water bottle and some herbal tea served shortly after dessert was finished.

My expectations for Royal Air Maroc’s food service were not high, especially after the boarding process, but they were easily exceeded. Overall, the food was excellent and honestly amongst the best and most consistent I’ve had in business class.

My only reservation was the slow start to the service and the sheer number of courses, which made for a later night than I would have liked on a red-eye flight such as this. But I didn’t need to say yes to every course either, had I wanted to prioritize getting to bed earlier.

Breakfast 

Approximately 90 minutes before landing, the flight attendants woke us up to provide breakfast service. I chose the cheese omelette with chicken, grilled tomato, and mushrooms.

The omelette was a little spongy, but the goat cheese was delicious and made up for it. The sausage was tasty but a bit tough. The bread was hard and inedible, but the muffin was good as was the croissant. 

Breakfast was overall a bit hit or miss compared to dinner, but still enjoyable.

Entertainment

Entertainment Console

The in-flight entertainment system featured a modern high-definition 17.5” touchscreen display. The typical options were available, including movies, TV shows, games, music, etc. The gallery below showcases essentially all of the movies that were available. There was a rather limited selection, with the new releases still being somewhat dated. 

Of course, the geo-vision system was also available to show the flight path and duration. 

The entertainment system could be controlled by touchscreen or by the retractable remote controller accessible from the side console compartment.

Hard-wired headphones were available for passengers and also connect to the jack inside the side console compartment. 

WiFi

Royal Air Maroc’s WiFi service is called WiFi On Stream. This is a bit of a misnomer as there is no internet connection available to passengers, just a limited entertainment service that allows passengers to access and stream films, music, and games preselected by Royal Air Maroc. 

Not having WiFi available is a pretty big flaw in any business class product these days. Thankfully, it was only a six-hour overnight flight and I’d spent most of my time eating and sleeping, thus avoiding suffering from too many internet withdrawal symptoms. 

Conclusion

I thought that Royal Air Maroc’s business class showed real promise, with a comfortable modern seat and excellent dining that easily rivals larger carriers. However, the disorganized boarding process and uneven service held it back from being a truly premium experience. With a few operational improvements and a new pillow amenity, this could become one of the more compelling transatlantic options to North Africa (and to Europe from there).