Marrakech Airport

Leave plenty of time for entry and exit. On arrival at Marrakech airport on a Monday evening around 20:00h we queued for an hour and a half to get through border control! It was chaos with angry and rude people jumping the enormous queue and no control by officials. The guys on the desks were bored and slow typing the details from your card into their computers with one finger and only once they'd finished chatting to their friends and rearranging the furniture in their booths. On departure from Marrakech it was very quick to get through security and we didn't have to remove belts shoes laptops etc. The airport was clean and cool and there were lots of places to change money buy snacks etc. All was going well until we had to get back in an enormous queue for border control again. Once again there was queue jumping and the bored slow officials in their booths. This time it only took about 40 mins though which was lucky or we could have missed our flight. Beyond this we went to get a drink and I had to pay 17.5 Euros in the cafe area for a can of Sprite plus 2 small cans of Casablanca! The toilets were clean and for a small fee the toilet attendant let me jump the queue and use the empty disabled toilet. My overall view - modern clean airport with ridiculous queues.

The terminal building looks nice and its clean but its probably the most awful airport experience I've had. Arrival is confusing no indication of what you have to do. Massive queues at immigration control. Queue jumping. Every detail has to be punched in by hand. Lack of safety - vehicles rushing along roads where passengers are walking. Bad attitude by officials. Having to fill in a card to leave the country is ludicrous. Departures lounge is just an excuse to rip you off. If the plan is for more tourists to visit the country the authorities must do something about the process to bring them in its shockingly bad.

Check-in is a zoo (at least at Air France) with not much respect for queuing. Wait at security for our morning flight was long but not worse than e.g. Chicago (i.e. 10-20 minutes). Priority pass lounge was very nice spotlessly clean with teapots and teacups arranged invitingly. Duty free shop was OK - a bit expensive but not outrageously so.

We must have landed and departed at the right time of day. There was hardly any lines at all less than 5 minutes. Staff at security and customs were courteous and welcoming. The ladies in the bathrooms ask discreetly for tips but since the bathrooms are sparkling clean I don't mind. There were many nice shops with fair prices if you need to purchase more items. We didn't care for the sweets that we purchased in the Moroccan Pastry shop but there are other places to buy food. The only annoyance was the high pitched electric saw being used near the gate as one of the shops was under construction.

A reasonably modern airport no air bridges you walk to and from the aircraft. Be prepared for long waits everywhere and ensure you have pens to fill out your forms both when leaving and entering the country. Food prices are similar to that in the UK but hot drinks served in cheap thin plastic cups All in all fit for purpose but would not want to be stranded here.

Quite average airport with its advantages and disadvantages. It is quite spacious cleaned and well-maintained. The distance between airport building and parked planes is very short and easily covered by walking without needing to go by bus. The downside is that it is quite disorganized big queues at check-in and especially at border control! Make sure you come well in advance not to miss your flight.

There are good points: the building is quite airy and there was adequate seating when we were there (though it could not have coped with many more passengers) there was a good choice of eating places mostly not the usual boring international fast food outlets. Getting to and from the centre took about 20 minutes by taxi at a reasonable price (we had pre-booked on arrival which I recommend if you can). However there is one huge downside which has coloured my experience - the absurd process of immigration and emigration. You fill in an immigration card on the flight and then queue to have it and your passport checked and stamped. In our case it took about 30 minutes just about acceptable. On leaving though you fill in another (identical) and form take it to your airline desk to be stamped if you only have hand luggage (as we did) you thus queue (15 minutes in our case) for a process that takes about 30 seconds. You then go to the embarkation area and queue again (5 minutes) to check that you have been to the airline desk. This allows you into the hallowed ground of the emigration area where you queue (about 40 minutes) to have the paperwork checked and a stamp in your passport. All over? Oh no there was another officer standing about 1 metre behind the desk you have just passed who randomly stopped people to check again (admittedly we were not stopped). So over an hour queuing to get a stamp to leave the country. Marrakech clearly needs and attracts many tourists and has much to offer if it wishes to continue increasing the number of visitors it has to find a more efficient way of processing them into and out of the country.

Arrived 20/04/2013. Took an hour and twenty minutes to get through immigration. On returning on 27/04/2013 took about 20 minutes. VIP lounge was very small and had no toilets or showers. Food was dire a couple of trays of stale sandwiches either cheese or spam type meat and a few cakes. Drinks selection very poor. No coffee or tea apart from mint tea.

Arrived at 11.30 am. Immigration area airy and spacious with almost ten checking points. Three were manned which was good as it was only our plane with about 100 pax. General atmosphere relaxed and friendly enough. Queuing time acceptable. Arrivals area enormous for the size of the airport. Plenty of taxis. Departed early in the morning. Check-in and security staff not particularly friendly but professional. Everything was in slow-motion but the airport was still empty so it was understandable. Airside renewed and enlarged. Sufficient shops and eating places good toilets no ATM's euros welcomed. Nice gate area with excellent airview. Flight information is insufficient. Overall a nice experience.

Sudden long queues at passport control for outward flight. Queues chaotic and more like crowds with no passenger supervision. Queue at each desk instead of one long queue. Despite having only five minutes until departure gate closing nobody would let us forward. Nearly lost our flight as a consequence. Monitors in departure lounge list all flights with other monitors listing just departure gates. Latter monitors only list flight when departure gate is announced. As we entered the lounge 2 minutes after our gate was due to close it gave the impression that we had missed our flight when in fact it was late.