The inaugural flight linking Porto to Casablanca was launched on Sunday during a ceremony held at Francisco Sa-Carneiro airport in Portugal's second largest city. Speaking on the occasion, the regional director of the Royal Air Maroc in Portugal, Adil Korchi, welcomed the reopening of this regular flight Porto-Casablanca, noting that this decision is the result of a strategy of diversification initiated Since two years already by the company present in the country since 1975. After the successful opening last year of three long haul flights (Washington, Doha and Nairobi), he said, RAM is opening four more flights to and from Porto, Rio de Janeiro, Napoli and Manchester this year. The Porto-Casablanca route, with three flights per week, will also facilitate the connection from the Portuguese city to more than 90 international destinations, including 32 routes in Africa, which is a considerable asset for the development of tourism and economic exchanges. A region known for its historical and entrepreneurial wealth, Korchi said in a statement to the MAP. The new route operated by Boeing aircraft with 159 seats in business and economic classes also offers a freight capacity of nearly 3 tonnes per aircraft, «which is a fairly good opportunity for import and export companies,» he said. The city of Porto has been named as the «best European destination» for 2017. Nicknamed as the capital of the North, the city has some 237,559 inhabitants and about 1.8 million for the Greater Porto, making it the second largest city in the country After Lisbon. It is known for its monuments and bridges on the Douro as well as for its emblematic soccer club, FC Porto. The historic center of the city was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1996.
