Morocco Flight Ban Extended: Stranded Travelers Face Uncertainty

"We are seven people leaving on Tuesday (December 14) with a stopover in Morocco to go to Guinea. Originally, we were supposed to leave on Sunday, but they moved our flight to Tuesday. I don’t know at all how I’m going to do it. I’m waiting to hear back from them and I’ll see from there," a Guinean woman who came to the Royal Air Maroc (RAM) agency located on Avenue de l’Opéra in Paris tells RFI.

Many of the agency’s customers are passengers in transit in Morocco. They claim that RAM did not inform them of the suspension of flights. Currently, they are facing the difficulty of getting their tickets refunded. "For the refund, it won’t be immediate, it will be in a few days," says a Senegalese. "Imagine for someone who has lived here for 10 years and just got their papers like me. It’s a pride to go back and see the family in Africa. But I’m stuck."

On Thursday, the Moroccan authorities extended the suspension of flights to Morocco until December 31 due to the rapid spread of the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, particularly in Europe and Africa.