Casablanca Airport

It is difficult to understand how a nation interested in tourism could tolerate such a dysfunctional facility as their primary air gateway. We arrived on a domestic flight from Ouarzazate for a transfer to a Lufthansa connection to DCA via Frankfurt. After finding our way with little or no signage to the transfer desk we found one person working there who pointed us to the other end of the counter for Lufthansa. As we had just over one hour for our transfer we became concerned when no one had showed up to man the desk for more than 30 minutes. No one could or would answer any questions. After an hour a Lufthansa agent arrived and told us that the flight schedule had been changed to one hour later and after many minutes managed to issue a boarding pass. We then proceeded to security where a surly attendant looked at my boarding pass and passport and asked why our passports had not been stamped in Ouarzazate. He then pointed to a desk nearby. Of course there was no one at the desk. Finally the only really pleasant person in the entire airport arrived and processed our passports though rather than stamping the boarding pass for the Casablanca to Frankfurt flight he stamped the one for Frankfurt to Washington. After finally making our way through security we arrived at the gate where there was no arrival/departure board and no one around to answer questions. The only place open for food had sandwiches that looked as if they had been there for several days. We had to wait for Lufthansa to give us something on the plane (in our respective middle seats several rows apart). Not surprisingly when we finally arrived at Washington our luggage was nowhere to be found. Lufthansa got it to us three days later. If you have any option do not fly through Casablanca.

This is Morocco's largest and main airport but it is horrible. We arrived from Dubai on Emirates after a 9 hour flight. Immigration lines were about an hour long even though they had several wickets open. Then they randomly screened only half the luggage. There are few stores once you get out into the arrivals hallway. Just a bunch of taxi bullying you into using them. The rail station is downstairs with few signs it is dark and dingy. Trains run every hour and people just abandon their luggage carts in the walkway by the train doors so it becomes an obstacle course to get on and off. No staff collect the carts. When we arrived by train to fly out it was just as bad. They security-screen your luggage as you enter the airport but don't seem to care if you set the metal detector off. We arrived 5 hours in advance. Most PA announcements are in French and Moroccan Arabic very few in English. The check-in opened 3 hours in advance of the flight and we got through Immigration and Customs easily enough. However the departure lounge is horrible. Over priced duty free shops and an overpriced Internet cafe ($10 per hour). There are no lounge chairs. All chairs have arms so you can not lie down across open seats. When our Lufthansa flight was boarding they funnelled everyone out into the gateway outside and then stopped us. Avoid at all costs!

Casablanca airport provided a very average experience. The young girls managing the check-in counters were more concerned about chatting with each other instead of checking peoples luggage in! So it took forever to check-in. It didn't get better at immigration where the locals pushed forward and tried to skip in line if they could get away with it. And again the staff took their time with checking people. The safety check was an absolute joke! Yes it was the usual as in all other airports but here the staff didn't care about people setting off the metal detector! The airport was clean and had an average amount of shops.

Casablanca must surely rank among the most tourist hostile airports anywhere. My wife and I arrived by Air France from CDG at 3pm and were stuck in the immigration line for 2 hours. There were a number of women with small children in the line and they too had to cool their heels until an immigration official eventually got round to processing them and eventually us. We had a driver waiting to take us to Marrakech and I feared that he might have given up. But no. Apparently this is the norm. The imigration check was somewhat "speedy." We got through in only 1 and a half hours. If Morocco is interested in increasing its tourist potential this is not the way to go.

Probably the worst experience of my life. Not exaggerating. Cigarette buts and stray cats everywhere. "No smoking" signs and announcements yet every single individual in the [overpriced] cafe was smoking. No accountability among employees. Spent twenty hours in the airport trying to get on a flight that I had booked. Got bounced between six different desks for hours. Seventeen-hour delays flagrant lies insults and employees and police continuously attempting to extract bribes. The shops will sell you phone cards too but all of the phones are out of order. Most of the "complimentary" WCs are half out-of-order and lacking TP. Half of the airport (T3 and the corridor toward it) are unlit unused and poorly laid out. Employees will claim to speak English and French. They don't know English and some of them hardly know French.

Casablanca is a terrible airport both in tems of facilities and personnel. Despite being an intercontinental airport there is bag deposit facility and no hotel. The closest one is over 3km away. The person at the information desk in the new terminal barely speaks any other language than arabic and is uninformed. When I asked the hotel phone number he didn't even have it written somewhere and had to struggle to remember it by heart! The worst is passport control: when I asked the guy to stamp a used page since I have very few empty ones for my visas he nodded and then stamped a virgin page straight away! I could not believe it! He just said: "sorry it doesn't matter anyway".

SWhile the new Terminal 2 is spacious clean and well equipped check in-staff are not well trained. I came to the airport and they told me I should have had a hard copy ticket not an electronic ticket and there was nothing they could do about it. I insisted they try and resolve the problem. After waiting until all passengers were checked in I asked again for help. The girl begrudgingly said she'd go to the Main Office and took a French woman passenger with her with a similar problem but told me wait there. They were gone almost an hour and I asked for help from the remaining check in desk woman on duty. She told me she had nothing to do with "my problem" so my husband explained in Arabic and asked her politely for help. She was very rude and very angry I asked her for her name. She started screaming at me "Are you the police? Are you a gendarme? I don't have to tell my name or badge number to anyone but the police." She refused to call her supervisor and continued her contemptuous and rude treatment towards me yelling at me to go sit down. The police showed up and she calmed down. The other woman then arrived with the French woman she'd helped who also had only an electronic ticket but told me the same thing again "We will put you on the plane to Lisbon and when you get there get your baggage and go find US Airways and ask them to straighten it out." The police then escorted me to the plane which was late taking off which had inconvenienced all passengers. And all this problem because they claimed the computer systems don't communicate with Lisbon/US Airways. These employees need better training in customer service or they will run everyone off eventually.

So crowded you couldn't move and the 3 or 4 kiosks for food packed and staffed by one or two people serving up overpriced and lackluster sandwiches mostly. There are no gate numbers on your boarding pass - I was told by an airport employee and a police officer I should go to gate 26 for my connection to Montreal. Then 1/2 hour before my boarding time a bus pulled up and the police yelled out "New York" - I just happened to ask him about my flight to Montreal and he told me to get on the aforementioned bus. This took me to the correct gate for my flight. None of this info is posted announced told to you or on your boarding pass. Only by the grace of God and the good will of surly airport staff will you get to your flight! Avoid if you can.

Quiet clean and organized airport. The check-in is usually done quickly without waiting. Only negative point is the customs staff that always try to get some extra money out of you by asking you to be "nice" to them. I always told them that I already spent my last MAD and maybe could help them out next time. These people should better controlled as they put a very negative image on the country.

The airport had seen some good and tangible improvements. The problem that needs to be urgently addressed still is transport to and from CMN especially after 2330. This is an airport and many international flights arrive at or around 2300. So please CMN operators don't leave arriving passengers at the mercy of the highly priced and notoriously disorganised taxi drivers. The rating of any airport is measured not only by new buildings and check-in counters but by other services it provides to the public such transport links their availibility and their affordability.