10 December 2020

From Casablanca with ilusion

Mohamed Sif, empleado de Iberia en Marruecos

Hello there!. My name is Mohammed Sif, and I work for Iberia in Morocco. I’m on the air cargo tea,. But I also help out a lot in sales. Soon I’ll be retiring, and I admit that it hurt, because my years in Iberia have been intense and very happy ones..

In Morocco, like everywhere else, we’ve suffered the effects of the pandemia. Let me tell you about my experience in the difficult months.

Here, too, we were locked down in our homes, so working from home with Teams meetings have been a constant since March. I bet you know what that’s like!

The first months were madness. From home we dealt with request from passengers who couldn’t travel of leave Morocco because of Covid, although at first we were unable to give them what they wanted --a way to get home. What a relief when we were cleared to stage a repatriation flight from Casablanca! We were at least as happy as our customers—maybe even happier!

But after that euphoria came the sadness of not seeing any of our aircraft in Moroccan airports. We knew it was only temporary, so we set to work and took advantage of the slump in flying activity by office working.

In mid-June we began making preparations for re-opening our Casablanca offices, even though officially we were still locked down. How great it was to get back to the office again! We disinfected everything and installed barriers at strategic points plus signs to remind people about distancing. We installed sanitising gel dispensers, and a system for taking the temperatures of all visitors to the office.

In October we had a very special video conference, during which it was announced that a commercial flight between Madrid and Casablanca had been scheduled for 2 December. You can’t imagine how this news made all of us feel in sales and the other  departments! When the meeting was over our spirits were soaring and we were aching to get back to work. For weeks that was our “trending topic”, and we told everyone about it --our families, customers, friends, anybody we could reach through social media, our website, and the telephone.

Starting in the second half of October we got a flood of calls from private customers and travel Moroccan travel agencies –people wanted to travel!  Flights were to resume with one small Iberia Regional Air Nostrum aircraft, but we were all so glad to be back in the air that it seemed huge!

The day arrived, 2 December. The first flight. It will always remain engraved in our memories and our hearts. Three flights a week in 100-seat aircraft, but on 10 December regular services were to be resumed, and we hope these will be expanded very soon, God willing.

Let me end with a thought that  applies to all of us all, in Morocco, Spain, or anywhere in the world: Covid-19 has taught us that it takes an effort to become the best version of ourselves, which we can, regardless of the difficulties involved. We have the skills and training to do it, and to do it better every day. “Every day as if it were the first day”, even when, like me, you’re on the brink of retirement!

A hug from Casablanca,

Mohamed