How do I plan around flight availability?

I always tell people to think about flights and itinerary together, not in sequence, because in Morocco the flight you can actually get often improves the trip rather than constraining it. The country has several international gateways — Marrakech and Fes most usefully for tourists, plus Casablanca (the main hub) and Tangier in the north — and they are well enough connected that you have real choice about where to start and finish. So rather than rigidly deciding "I must fly into Marrakech" and then paying whatever that costs, I look at where the good-value flights land and let that shape the route.

The most powerful move here is being open to an open-jaw ticket — fly into one city, out of another. Because Morocco's best routes run in one direction along the country's arc, flying into Marrakech and home from Fes (or vice versa) often costs little more than a round trip and saves you a wasted backtracking day. Most flight-search tools let you set different origin and destination cities, or you can book two one-ways. I check the loop fare and the open-jaw fare side by side for every trip; surprisingly often the open-jaw is barely more, and the itinerary it unlocks is far better.

Connections matter as much as price. Many travellers route through Casablanca, the national hub, and then take a quick domestic flight or the comfortable train onward — Casablanca to Marrakech or Fes by rail is easy and cheap. If you are coming from outside Europe, building in a sensible layover (and confirming whether you clear immigration at the transit point) avoids tight, stressful connections. I also nudge clients to check budget-carrier schedules carefully, as some routes from Europe only run two or three days a week, which can quietly dictate whether your trip starts on a Tuesday or a Friday.

My practical sequence is this: settle the rough shape and length of the trip, identify which two cities you would ideally enter and leave from, then go and find the real flights before committing to anything else. Once the flights are booked, the arrival and departure cities are fixed points, and I build the ground itinerary to flow neatly between them — no backtracking, no awkward dead-end on the last day. Let availability and price decide the endpoints, design the journey to fit, and you get a cheaper, smoother trip than trying to force the flights to match a route you have already locked in your head.