Royal Air Maroc organizes 12 special flights to Boston for Atlas Lions World Cup quarter-final match
via Le Matin1 min read
Royal Air Maroc has announced 12 special direct flights from Casablanca to Boston to transport Moroccan supporters for the Atlas Lions' historic 2026 World Cup quarter-final match on July 9. Following Morocco's qualification, the national airline is deploying wide-body aircraft with a total capacity of 3,600 seats to meet anticipated high demand. To make travel more accessible, Royal Air Maroc has set a fixed round-trip economy class fare of 10,000 dirhams. These tickets are non-modifiable and non-refundable. As the official carrier for the national team, Royal Air Maroc mobilized its resources immediately after the qualification to support Moroccan fans throughout the tournament. Tickets will be available for purchase starting at 9:30 PM at Royal Air Maroc commercial agencies in Morocco and on the company's dedicated online platform. This initiative aims to enable thousands of supporters to travel to Boston and cheer on the Atlas Lions as they seek a historic first-time qualification for the World Cup semi-finals.
Free daily or weekly digest of the most important stories from across 18 African countries. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by Le Matin.
Hosting mega-sporting events like the World Cup or Olympics now involves more than just accommodating teams and spectators; it's about boosting a country's appeal, accelerating infrastructure projects, and integrating urban centers into global tourism and transport networks. For Morocco, this perspective is crucial for the 2030 World Cup. Eduardo Amaral Haddad identifies six host cities鈥擱abat, Casablanca, Tangier, Agadir, Marrakech, and F猫s鈥攚hich collectively represent about 80% of the national GDP. This highlights the importance of the competition leveraging Morocco's key economic areas, while also raising questions about distributing benefits across the country. Haddad emphasizes that stadiums alone are insufficient; their impact depends on the surrounding ecosystem of transport, services, hospitality, and sustainable uses that extend beyond the event. While a sports venue attracts attention, long-term effects are built through infrastructure that improves circulation, access to services, visitor reception, inter-city connections, and regional productivity. The challenge isn't just meeting competition standards but ensuring sports investments transform daily life in cities, regions, or the country after the event. Mega-events have varying territorial impacts. A World Cup typically distributes investments across multiple host cities, potentially leading to broader but also uneven benefits due to differing levels of infrastructure and connectivity. The Olympics, conversely, c
The future of online payments and shopping will be reshaped by artificial intelligence, according to discussions at the Visa Payments Forum 2026 in Paris. The event highlighted a shift towards "agentic commerce," where AI agents will perform purchases on behalf of consumers, potentially making the act of payment and even shopping itself invisible. This vision moves beyond current digital assistants, with AI agents managing transactions based on user preferences, spending limits, and loyalty programs, effectively buying what the user "would buy." Visa executives, including President Oliver Jenkyn and Technology President Rajat Taneja, emphasized that the industry is experiencing multiple simultaneous revolutions, including generative AI, blockchain, and stablecoins. This complexity requires banks to integrate AI while preparing for new digital currencies, and merchants to adapt platforms for AI-driven consumer interactions. A key challenge identified is ensuring trust, not just in the payer's identity, but in the AI agent's intent and adherence to user-defined rules. Visa is developing tools like Agent Score to help merchants assess their readiness for AI agents and Agentic Directory to verify legitimate agents and merchants. The company stresses that innovation in security means making controls invisible to the user, relying on technologies like tokenization to embed trust and context directly into transactions. Tokenization, already prevalent in mobile payments, is expected
Must ReadMorocco's national team, the Atlas Lions, advanced to the quarter-finals of the World Cup 2026 after a decisive 3-0 victory against Canada at Houston Stadium on Saturday. Despite facing an aggressive Canadian defense in the first half, the Atlas Lions demonstrated remarkable control to overcome one of the host nations after the break. Goals from Azzedine Ounahi, who scored twice, and Soufiane Rahimi in added time, solidified their qualification. This strong performance sets up a quarter-final match against France, which is anticipated to be a highly competitive encounter.