Agadir Al Massira Airport Car Hire (AGA): Desks and Handover
The handover at AGA, and the twenty five kilometres of unfamiliar road that come immediately after it.
The distance is the thing nobody mentions when you book
Al Massira is not an airport on the edge of the resort. It sits about twenty five kilometres inland, in farmland, and the sea is not visible from it. Everything that is different about collecting a car here, compared with the Mediterranean airports most visitors are used to, follows from that one fact.
Where the airport actually is
- Inland, not coastal
- AGA sits southeast of Agadir among the farms of the Souss plain. You cross the whole of that plain before the road reaches the city, and there is nothing resembling a resort on the way.
- Half an hour to the beach road
- Roughly thirty minutes to the seafront in normal conditions, and more if you are carrying on north to Tamraght or Taghazout, which adds another twenty to thirty minutes on top.
- No transfer worth waiting for
- There is no rail link to Agadir at all, and taxis for that distance are not cheap. The arithmetic that makes a hire car obvious here is the same arithmetic that makes the drive unavoidable.
What the building asks of you
- A border, not a domestic hall
- Morocco is outside Schengen, so there is passport control and an arrival form between the aircraft and the baggage belt. Budget twenty minutes for it, and more when two charters land together.
- A compact arrivals area
- Once you are through, the hall is small enough that nothing is far away. The counters, the shuttle bays and the car park are all within a short walk of the same doors, in different directions.
- Cash before you leave
- Dirhams cannot be bought in useful quantities before you travel. Draw some here, because the fuel stop and the parking attendant at the far end both expect notes and coins.
Four honest things about the first drive, in the dark
This is the part of an Agadir car hire page that usually gets skipped, because it is the part that does not sell anything. It is also the only part that will matter to you on the night.
Most arrivals here are evening arrivals
The charter schedule into Al Massira is weighted towards the end of the day, so for a large share of visitors the first drive of the holiday is also the first drive in the dark. Plan the evening around that rather than around a dinner reservation.
Twenty five kilometres of open road
The airport sits inland, not on the coast, so the road out crosses farmland and scrub before it reaches anything that looks like a city. There is very little ambient light on that stretch and the lit sections start late.
Unlit traffic is the real hazard
Mopeds, carts and pedestrians share the edges of rural Moroccan roads and not all of them carry lights. Drive slower than the limit allows on the unlit sections, and treat the hard shoulder as occupied until you can see that it is not.
The limit falls before the camera
Speed drops to 60 at the town sign and the enforcement usually sits just after it rather than before. On the approach to Agadir there are several of these transitions in quick succession, so watch the signs rather than the satnav.
None of this makes the drive dangerous. It makes it a drive that deserves your attention rather than a conversation, which is why the walkaround and the mirror adjustment belong in the car park and not at the first roundabout. If an evening landing makes the whole idea unappealing, the page on whether you need a car here at all works through the alternative.
Aircraft steps to the main road, in the order it happens
Al Massira is a small airport with a long tail: the building takes about an hour of your evening and the road into town takes another half of one. The timings below assume an ordinary charter arrival rather than a lucky one. One caution before you use any of it. Which operator sits at which position in the hall changes as contracts turn over, and several of the cheapest rates here are not handed over in the building at all, so the meeting point printed on your voucher is the authority and nothing on this page replaces it.
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1
Passport control and the arrival form
20 minMorocco is not inside the Schengen area, so there is a police desk between you and the baggage hall and an arrival form to complete. It is the longest queue of the whole evening and the one nobody plans for. If two charters land together it can run well past twenty minutes, so fill the form in on the aircraft if the crew hand them out, and keep your passport out rather than packed.
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2
Bags, then a cash machine
15 minBelts start moving while the passport queue is still clearing, so the bag is often waiting for you. Draw dirhams before you leave the building. Your rental is priced in euros and paid online, but fuel and the parking attendant at the other end are cash transactions, and the first filling station you pass on the airport road is not the place to discover that.
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3
Find the meeting point your voucher names
10 minRead the voucher before you start walking. A counter inside the hall, a shuttle bay outside it and an agent standing in the car park are three different directions, and backtracking across arrivals with a trolley and tired children is the slowest ten minutes of the trip. If the voucher carries a phone number, save it to your phone now rather than hunting for the email later.
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4
Paperwork, then the walkaround
20 minLicence, permit, passport, card and voucher come out together. Read the total on the screen before you sign, and say out loud which extras you are declining. Then walk the car yourself with the damage sheet in hand. Kerbed wheels and windscreen chips are the two arguments this market actually has, so photograph every panel, the glass, the wheels, the fuel gauge and the odometer with the timestamp on.
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5
Set the car up before the barrier
5 minMirrors, lights, wipers and the destination all get sorted while you are still parked and still have a wifi signal. This is not fussiness. The moment you clear the barrier you are on twenty five kilometres of open road you have never driven, very possibly in the dark, and that is a bad place to be learning where the headlight stalk lives.
Supplier
In the hall past customs, with the car in the airport car park
The arrangement most people picture: queue once, sign once, walk out to the bay. It is usually the most expensive way to collect and it is the easiest to find at eleven at night with a sleeping child. Positions in the hall are reassigned periodically, so look for the name on your voucher rather than for a counter number somebody quoted you.
A marked minibus from outside arrivals to a yard a few minutes along the airport road
There is no counter to find. You call or message on landing, or wait where the voucher says, and a van collects you. This is where the cheapest Agadir rates live and the trade is time: add twenty to thirty minutes, and remember the same shuttle has to bring you back on departure day. Late at night the vans run less often, which is the real risk rather than the distance.
An agent holding your name, at a named bay or just outside the terminal doors
The paperwork happens on a tablet beside the car and there is no queue at all, which makes it the strongest option on a late landing. It also depends entirely on one person being where the voucher says they will be. Save the number before you fly, and if the hall is empty when you come out, phone before you assume anything has gone wrong.
No airport handover at all. The car arrives in the city the next morning
Some bookings here are written this way, and on an evening arrival it is worth considering: you take a taxi in, sleep, and drive for the first time in daylight on a road you have already seen once from the passenger seat. Check whether your voucher is actually written like this before you plan around it, because the wording differs between operators.
If your flight is late
- The flight leaves Europe late
- Message the supplier from the departure gate, not from Moroccan arrivals. Almost everyone will re-time a pickup for free if they hear from you before the original slot passes. After it passes you are into the no-show rules, and on a prepaid rate a no-show usually means the money is gone rather than moved.
- You land after 23:00
- Put the flight number on the booking so the arrival is visible on the board. A supplier that has it will normally wait; a supplier without it can close on schedule with your car still on the lot. On a landing this late an in-terminal counter or a meet and greet is worth the extra few euros a day over a shuttle.
- Nobody is at the meeting point
- Go back inside where the signal is better and call the number on the voucher before you do anything else. Do not open a second rental at a walk-up counter to solve the evening: you will be paying for two cars, and the first one is almost always ten minutes away rather than lost.
Have these in your hand at the desk
What is waiting on the lot, counted today
These are the first hundred cars the search at the foot of this page returns for Agadir dates. Availability moves daily, so treat them as the shape of the market rather than a promise about one particular car.
86
of the first 100 cars take no deposit at all
37
are priced under EUR 50 a day
96
come with unlimited mileage
67
can be cancelled free of charge
48
are automatic, against 52 manuals
10
are SUV or crossover shapes
The zero deposit share is the number worth carrying to the desk: it is the highest of any city on this site, and it is why a debit card is rarely the obstacle here that it is elsewhere. Nothing in that hundred is classed as premium, and there are no convertibles, seven seaters, vans or electric cars in it.
Six documents and terms, and what each one does at the counter
Nothing on this list is unusual, but two of the six catch visitors out often enough to be worth reading before you fly rather than at the counter with a queue behind you.
| Document or term | What happens to it at handover | What to sort out before you fly |
|---|---|---|
| Driving licence | Checked, photographed or scanned, and the held-since date is read off it. | That it is the original, in date, and held for however long your supplier states. |
| International Driving Permit | Very commonly asked for alongside a foreign licence at Moroccan desks. | Get it at home before you fly. It cannot be issued to you in Morocco. |
| Passport | Identity for the main driver, copied against the agreement. | That the name matches the booking exactly, including middle names. |
| Payment card | Checked against the main driver name even when nothing is being held. | A card in the driver own name. Prepaid and virtual numbers are commonly refused. |
| Fuel policy | Stated on the agreement and set by the supplier, not by the booking site. | Which of the two policies you have, and the gauge reading when you drive away. |
| The voucher | The document that decides where you meet and what you already paid for. | That it is downloaded offline. Airport wifi is not something to rely on. |
The permit is the one to deal with now. It is issued at home in a few minutes, it cannot be issued to you once you have landed, and a desk that wants to see one will not be talked out of it at midnight.
Cars for collection around Al Massira
Live availability from the operators serving Agadir and its airport. Put in the dates that match your flight and the list reprices around them.
Every line, one car at a time
Decide the handover, not just the headline rate
A counter in the hall, a shuttle to a yard and an agent in the car park are three different evenings. Agadir Travel shows the deposit, the mileage and the cancellation terms on every car before you choose one.
Search available carsQuestions people ask before they land at AGA
About twenty five kilometres, which is a drive of roughly half an hour in ordinary conditions. The airport is inland rather than on the coast, so the whole of that distance is covered before you see the sea. Allow longer on a Friday evening and longer again if you are heading past the city to the surf villages north of it.
Honestly, there is no stable answer to publish. Positions inside the arrivals hall are reassigned as supplier contracts turn over, and a good share of the cheaper bookings here are not handed over in the building at all but by shuttle to a nearby yard or by an agent meeting you in the car park. Your voucher names the meeting point and that is the document to follow.
Read the voucher, because the policy is the supplier decision rather than ours. The two you are likely to meet are collecting and returning a full tank, or returning the car at whatever level you received it. Either way the useful habit is the same: photograph the gauge and the odometer before you leave the bay. Diesel is sold as gasoil, stations are attended, and payment is usually cash.
It will if the supplier can see your flight, so put the flight number on the booking. A desk with the number normally waits for a late inbound; a desk without one can close on time. The other consideration is the shuttle: off-airport vans thin out at night, so on a very late landing a handover inside the terminal or beside the car is worth paying a little more for.
In most cases here, yes. Eighty six of the first hundred cars in the current window take no deposit at all, which removes the hold that normally forces a credit card. You will still be asked for a card in the main driver name as identification at handover, but the amount frozen on it is nothing. Check the figure printed on the car before you reserve it.
It can be, and it is a fair question on an evening arrival. You lose the convenience of walking straight to a car and you gain a first drive in daylight on a road you have already seen once. If your accommodation is on the beach road and you are not going anywhere for two days, a city or delivery pickup also saves you two days of rental you were not using.