American Airlines Considers Reviving Philadelphia-Casablanca Direct Flight in 2023

American Airlines will re-examine the possibility of launching a route between Philadelphia International Airport and Morocco towards the end of 2023, a company executive told The Business Journal. Scheduled for the summer of 2020, the launch of this route - the first direct non-stop line to Casablanca - had been postponed due to travel restrictions and the drop in demand related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The route was part of a partnership between American Airlines, Royal Air Maroc (RAM) and the Oneworld alliance, said Brian Znotins, vice president of network planning and scheduling at American Airlines, specifying that the flights were to be operated on Boeing 757, an "older" and "less efficient" aircraft that the company has ultimately withdrawn from its fleet.

American Airlines plans to replace these retired aircraft with Airbus 321XLR - "a properly sized aircraft" for a route to Morocco - which will arrive in the second half of 2023. During the summers of 2023 and 2024, the company "will also conduct a holistic assessment" of each route in its network to determine which other potential routes to restore based on evolving demand and market competition at that time, added Brian Znotins.