As usual, the decision to switch to daylight saving time was taken “shortly beforehand”, since it was on 9 March that the decision was taken to switch to daylight saving time on the last Sunday in March, i.e. 25 March 2012!
[Edit]Shortly afterwards, after further reflection, the date was moved to the end of April, see comments on the French version. This story is turning into a running gag[/Edit]!Fortunately, this is taking place outside the school holiday periods, so the risk of airport chaos in the event of large crowds will be more limited.
It’s worth remembering that in 2008, the first year that daylight saving time was introduced, Ramadan had been forgotten, causing a premature stop and a bit of a panic for the airlines, which were forced to inform their passengers by text message that they were in fact leaving an hour earlier (the “real” timetables could not, of course, be changed).
The good thing, however, is that this decision has been enshrined in law, which means we won’t have to revisit the issue every year, summer time, winter time, Ramadan time…
The second very good thing is that Morocco is finally aligning itself with the summer time practised in Europe, i.e. from the end of March to the end of September, with a suspension during the month of Ramadan. Up until now, Moroccan summer time lasted barely three months, and people were wondering whether it would resume for a fortnight after the end of Ramadan 2012. The complex calculations for businesses dealing with European companies (hour – 2, hour minus 1, hour I don’t know what) will disappear.
What’s more, the longer period chosen for summer time may encourage Moroccans to actually adopt it, rather than seeing it as an oddity. Last year, the time on the clocks in some ministries was not even changed…
From now on – unless the law is amended – summer time will begin on the last Sunday in March, at 3 a.m., and end on the last Sunday in September.
A typo or syntax error? You can select the text and hit Ctrl+Enter to send us a message. Thank you! If this post interested you, maybe you can also leave a comment. We'd love to exchange with you !
