Marrakech’s $1 Billion Mega Airport Project Faces Uncertain Future

The first phase of the project was to cost 4.3 billion dirhams and be completed by 2025. The second phase, costing 5.7 billion dirhams, was to be completed a few years later and the airport delivered in 2030, recalls Kech24.

The commune of Sidi Zouine, west of Marrakech, was chosen to host this mega airport. It was to cover an area of 2,000 hectares and have two runways of 3,500 meters long and 60 meters wide, air terminals with a capacity of 20 million passengers per year, a control tower, as well as equipment and hotel and industrial units.

The realization of the project was entrusted to the private sector. The State, for its part, was to be responsible for making the land available and managing access to the airport, in particular the road and rail infrastructure.

The work on the first phase was supposed to start in 2020 after the completion of the feasibility studies. But the Covid-19 pandemic would not have allowed the proper progress and completion of the studies. Morocco’s organization of the 2030 World Cup should probably give a boost to this mega project.