By Ogova Ondego
Published February 19, 2016
Travellers from Nairobi to Casablanca shall from March 2016 benefit from direct flights between the two cities.
Royal Air Maroc (RAM), the flag carrier of the north African kingdom, has introduced direct flights from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Casablanca’s Mohammed V International Airport from March 1, 2016.
RAM says it shall have two scheduled flights out of Nairobi on Wednesdays and Fridays. Flights out of Casablanca to Nairobi shall be on Thursdays and Saturdays.
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The airline says the flights shall connect not just Nairobi and Casablanca but also the Marakech tourism hub and the entire north African country.
Travelling across Africa, especially Anglophone East Africa and Francophone West and North Africa is full of challenges. It is hoped that the planned direct flights will make it a little easier in terms of convenience. It is also hoped that the bottlenecks in the application and acquisition of travel visa have been taken care of. The language barrier, too, ought o be removed for travel, interaction and business between East Africa and North Africa to thrive.
Founded on June 28, 1957 and owned by the government of Morocco, the head office of RAM is on the grounds of Casablanca-Anfa Airport.
Meanwhile, South Africa has from February 1, 2016 scrapped ‘Transit Visa’ for travellers to neighbouring southern African countries.
Travellers going to Gaborone (Botswana); Maseru (Lesotho); Maputo (Mozambique); Windhoek (Namibia); Manzini (Swaziland); and Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) through South Africa’s international airports no longer require visas.
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The four selected entry points on which the exemption is applicable to transit travellers are Oliver R Tambo International Airport (Johannesburg), Cape Town International Airport (Cape Town), King Shaka International Airport (Durban) and privately-owned Lanseria International Airport (Johannesburg).
Lanseria, that is situated to the north west of Johannesburg, offers regional scheduled routes and seasonal charter flights. It can also handle aircraft the size of Boeing 757-300 and Airbus A319.
