Aviasales
Review

Aviasales Review: Is It the Cheapest Way to Fly to Morocco?

4.2 / 5
⭐ Our verdict

Aviasales is a flight metasearch, and understanding that one word tells you both why it's good and where it bites. It doesn't sell tickets, doesn't hold your booking and doesn't mark up fares — it queries hundreds of airlines and online agencies in real time, shows you the cheapest way to fly Marrakech, Casablanca, Agadir, Fes or Tangier, and then hands you to whoever is actually selling that seat.

That model makes it genuinely powerful and completely free to use: it will routinely surface fares the airline's own site won't show you, because agencies buy inventory in bulk and undercut. The catch is the handoff. Your ticket is issued by that airline or agency, not by Aviasales, so when a flight is cancelled or you need to change a date, Aviasales isn't who you call.

Use it to find the fare. Then look hard at who's selling it before you decide the €12 saving is worth it.

Pros

  • Free to use and takes no markup — you pay the seller's price, not a padded one
  • Searches hundreds of airlines and online agencies in real time rather than serving cached fares
  • Regularly surfaces fares cheaper than the airline's own site, because agencies undercut with bulk inventory
  • Price calendar and flexible-date tools make it easy to move a Morocco trip a day and save real money
  • Big and established: trading since 2007, 15+ million monthly users across 190+ countries
  • Covers all five Moroccan airports worth flying into — Marrakech, Casablanca, Agadir, Fes and Tangier

Cons

  • It's a search engine, not a seller — your ticket is issued by a third party and Aviasales has no control over it
  • If a flight is cancelled or you need a change, you deal with the issuing agency, not Aviasales
  • The cheapest result is often an obscure agency whose customer service is the reason it's cheapest
  • No loyalty points or airline status benefits from the metasearch itself
  • Its historical centre of gravity is Russia and the CIS, where it holds roughly a fifth of the market
  • Saving €12 by buying from an unknown OTA is a bad trade the moment anything goes wrong

How it scores, criterion by criterion

Fare-finding power
4.6
Free to use, no markup
4.5
Price calendar & flexible dates
4.4
Scale & credibility
4.3
Morocco route coverage
4.2
Quality of the agencies it surfaces
3.4
Recourse when things go wrong
3.3

In depth

Aviasales started in 2007 as a blog about bargain airfares written by Konstantin Kalinov, turned into an actual travel service in 2008, and grew into one of the biggest flight search engines in the world. Today it's operated by a Hong Kong company, serves upwards of 15 million users a month across 190-plus countries, and did more than $1.6 billion in gross bookings in 2021.

Its old sibling JetRadar, which ran the same idea for an international audience, was folded into it in 2017. It is, by any measure, a serious and long-established piece of travel infrastructure rather than a fly-by-night comparison site.

The single most important thing to understand is the business model, because most complaints about Aviasales come from people who never grasped it. Aviasales is a metasearch engine. It does not sell you a ticket. It queries airlines and online travel agencies in real time, ranks what comes back, and sends you to the seller to complete the purchase. It takes no cut from you and adds no markup — the price you see is the price that seller is quoting at that moment, taxes and mandatory fees included.

When people say Aviasales "lost my booking" or "won't refund me", the answer is that Aviasales never had the booking. It's a search box, not a shop.

That model is exactly why it finds cheap flights to Morocco. Airlines sell blocks of unsold seats to agencies at wholesale rates, and those agencies then resell them a little above cost — which is how a Marrakech or Casablanca fare on an OTA can undercut the airline's own website for the identical seat on the identical plane. A metasearch is the only way to see that spread, because it's looking at hundreds of sellers at once rather than one.

On the European–Morocco routes this matters a lot: the market is a messy mix of legacy carriers, low-cost airlines and charter operators, and prices move constantly.

The tools around the search are where it earns its keep for a trip like this. The price calendar shows you the cost of every departure date across a month rather than the one you happened to type in, and on Morocco routes the difference between a Friday and a Tuesday departure is frequently more than the cost of an extra night's riad.

If your dates are flexible at all, that view is the whole product. Route coverage spans all five Moroccan airports this site deals with — Marrakech Menara, Casablanca Mohammed V, Agadir Al Massira, Fes–Saïss and Tangier Ibn Battouta — and it'll happily show you the ones you didn't consider, which is worth knowing when Agadir is €80 cheaper than Marrakech for a trip where either works.

Now the part that deserves your attention rather than a shrug. The cheapest row in the results is very often a small agency you've never heard of, and it's cheapest for a reason — thin margins usually mean thin customer service. That's fine when everything works, and everything usually works. It's not fine at 6am at Casablanca when your flight is cancelled and the number in your confirmation email rings out.

So the discipline is simple: once Aviasales has shown you the fare, look at who's selling it. If a recognised airline or a well-known agency is within ten or twenty euros of the mystery OTA, take the known quantity — you're buying recourse, and on a flight that's worth more than a coffee's difference in price.

It's also worth knowing where the company grew up. Aviasales is historically a Russian and CIS product — it holds something like a fifth of the Russian air ticket market — and while it now runs globally from Hong Kong across 190-plus countries, that DNA occasionally shows in the interface and the agency mix. It doesn't make the results wrong; the fares are real and the search is genuinely comprehensive.

It just means the platform sometimes feels less polished than the Western metasearches, and the agencies it surfaces are a broader, more international set than you might be used to.

So how should you actually use it for Morocco? Search here first, always — it's free, it takes no markup, and it will show you the true bottom of the market plus the flexible-date view that saves the most money. Then make a deliberate decision about the seller rather than clicking the top row on autopilot. For many trips the cheapest result is a perfectly good agency and you pocket the saving.

For a tight connection, an expensive fare, or a trip you can't afford to have go wrong, spend the extra and buy from the airline. That's not a criticism of Aviasales — that's using a search engine correctly.

Who's it for? Anyone price-led and date-flexible, which describes most people flying to Morocco for a holiday; anyone comparing the five Moroccan airports to see which is cheapest to fly into; anyone who wants to know the real floor of the market before deciding what to pay. Who should be careful? Anyone flying on a tight schedule with no slack, anyone who wants a single company accountable end-to-end, and anyone chasing airline status or points, none of which a metasearch gives you.

And once the flight is sorted, remember the airport rank is the other place travellers overpay in Morocco — a fixed-price transfer booked ahead handles the leg the flight search doesn't.

Which should you book?

Search Aviasales when

You want the genuine floor of the market for Marrakech, Casablanca, Agadir, Fes or Tangier — and especially if your dates flex, where the price calendar routinely beats a fixed-date search by more than a night's accommodation.

Search flights on Aviasales

Consider Kiwi.com when

Your route needs stitching together — self-transfer combinations and mixed low-cost itineraries that a conventional search won't build. It's a different kind of tool for awkward connections.

Search flights on Kiwi.com

Sort the ground leg separately when

The flight's booked. The airport rank is where Morocco trips leak money — a fixed-price transfer agreed online, with a driver tracking your flight, handles the bit a flight search can't.

Check Kiwitaxi prices

Frequently asked questions

What is Aviasales and how does it make money?

It's a flight metasearch engine, trading since 2007 and now serving 15+ million users a month across 190+ countries. It doesn't sell tickets — it searches airlines and online agencies in real time and sends you to the seller to buy. It costs you nothing and adds no markup; it's paid a commission by the seller. The price you see is that seller's own price, taxes included.

Is Aviasales legit and safe?

Yes, as a search engine. It's been running since 2007, it's large and established, and it processed over $1.6 billion in bookings in 2021. The nuance is that safety depends on who you end up buying from, because Aviasales hands you off to an airline or agency to complete the purchase. The platform is sound; the seller is the variable you should actually assess.

Why are Aviasales fares cheaper than the airline's own site?

Because airlines sell blocks of unsold seats to agencies at wholesale rates, and those agencies resell them just above cost. That means the same seat on the same plane can be cheaper through an OTA than direct. A metasearch is the only practical way to see that spread, since it queries hundreds of sellers at once instead of one.

What happens if my flight is cancelled or I need to change it?

You deal with whoever issued the ticket — the airline or the agency — not Aviasales, which never held the booking. This is the single most important thing to understand about metasearch, and it's behind most complaints about the platform. If a trip has no slack in it, that's a strong argument for buying from the airline even at a small premium.

Does Aviasales cover Moroccan airports?

Yes — all five that matter: Marrakech Menara (RAK), Casablanca Mohammed V (CMN), Agadir Al Massira (AGA), Fes–Saïss (FEZ) and Tangier Ibn Battouta (TNG). It's useful precisely because it lets you compare them: if your trip works from either Marrakech or Agadir, the fare difference between the two is often worth a couple of hours' extra driving.

Should I always book the cheapest result?

No, and this is where most people go wrong. The cheapest row is often a small agency you've never heard of, and thin margins usually mean thin service. If a recognised airline or a well-known agency is within ten or twenty euros, take the known quantity — the difference buys you someone to call when a flight is cancelled at 6am, which is worth considerably more than the saving.