Royal Air Maroc has launched its longest non-stop service from Casablanca to Beijing Daxing. This marks the airline’s only Asian route, excluding the Middle East, and resumes a connection briefly available before the pandemic. The service began on January 20, coinciding with Shanghai Airlines’ new flights from Shanghai to Marseille and Casablanca.
The route covers 5,451 nautical miles (10,096 km) as the crow flies but is longer in practice due to avoiding Russian airspace. It is Africa’s second-longest non-stop link to China after Air China’s Johannesburg-Shenzhen service. Among all non-stop flights from Africa to Asia, it ranks third longest.
Royal Air Maroc operates this route three times weekly using a Boeing 787-9 aircraft with 302 seats. The airline now has 11 Boeing 787s in its fleet. The inaugural flight used an aircraft registered as CN-RGY.
Flight AT230 departs Casablanca at 16:20 and arrives in Beijing at 11:55 the next day, taking approximately 12 hours and 35 minutes. The return flight AT231 leaves Beijing at 13:55 and lands in Casablanca at 21:20 after about 14 hours and 25 minutes.
Beijing is a significant market for Royal Air Maroc. In the year ending July 2024, there were around 26,400 roundtrip passengers between Casablanca and Beijing airports. Other key markets include Shanghai with slightly fewer passengers and Guangzhou following closely.
The schedule is designed for connecting passengers traveling between China and Central or Western Africa, though transit times may not always be competitive for these connections.
Royal Air Maroc’s five longest routes include São Paulo Guarulhos and Miami among others. Notably, Rabat-Miami features a charter service planned for February but isn’t bookable traditionally.
