Morocco regains 65% of pre-Covid-19 passenger traffic
Last February, Morocco had gradually closed itself off from the world because of the alpha, beta and delta variants of Covid-19. After several months of isolation, the Moroccan authorities announced the resumption of international flights from 15 June onwards on the basis of a classification of countries of origin into two lists (list A and list B), according to their epidemiological situation.
In only two and a half months of activity (from 15 June to 31 August 2021), passenger traffic seems to be resuming rapidly in Morocco. According to the data published by the National Office of Airports (ONDA) on 16 September, the country's airports have received, during this period, 3 56 million passengers. This is 65% of the traffic of people recorded in the same period in 2019.
In detail, the Mohammed V airport of Casablanca welcomed 1 457 154 international passengers; that is to say a recovery of 58% of the traffic of 2019. With 565 680 passengers, Marrakech airport recorded a recovery rate of 46%. Other airports have even exceeded their 2019 traffic. These are Tetouan (+133%), Nador (+127%), Tangier (+114%), Al Hoceima (+106%) and Oujda (+105%).
In August 2021 alone, international traffic at Morocco's airports recovered 82% of the 2019 passenger traffic. This rate rivals that of Mediterranean countries such as France (70%), Spain (68%) and Turkey (76%).
Since the recovery, 31,202 international flights have been recorded; a recovery rate of 77% compared to the same period of 2019. The share of Mohammed V airport is 41% of this traffic, ahead of Marrakech Menara airport (16%) and Tangier Ibn Batouta airport (10%).
The revival of traffic has been further boosted by flights to and from Europe (3.1 million passengers, or 74% of 2019 levels) which remains the leading international market for Morocco. The first five countries at the top of the ranking are: France, Spain, Belgium, Italy and Germany.
From 15 June to 31 August 2021, several new routes have also been created from Morocco. Among these are the Casablanca - Düsseldorf (Germany), Marrakech - Zaragoza (Spain), Fez - Rotterdam (Netherlands), Oujda - Murcia (Spain), Rabat - Malaga (Spain), Agadir - Lisbon (Portugal) routes.
