Morocco Suspends Flights to Multiple Countries Amid COVID-19 Variant Concerns

The Moroccan authorities make the decisions to suspend air links taking into account the evolution of the health situation and other indicators. In Africa, 1 million people are infected with the coronavirus every 69 days and more than 4.1 million cases of contamination have been recorded since the beginning of the pandemic. The Covid-19 vaccination campaign has started in the majority of African countries in recent weeks. In Europe, it is the spread of new variants of the coronavirus that is worrying.

To date, Morocco has suspended its flights with 37 countries. These suspensions are not without consequence on air traffic. The latest statistics from the National Airports Office (ONDA) show that passenger traffic in February fell by nearly 78.5% compared to the same month a year earlier. As for the volume of commercial passenger traffic, it stands at only 420,384 travelers at the end of February 2021 compared to more than 1.95 million during the same month the previous year.

In detail, traffic fell by 71.3% at Mohammed V airport with 211,800 passengers compared to 737,816 in February 2020. Tanger Ibn Batouta airport recorded a 64% drop compared to the same period, standing at 37,969 travelers. Marrakech airport experienced a 93% decline. At Agadir airport, the drop exceeds 88%. Fes-Saïss and Nador declined by 80% and 49% respectively. As a result, there is a reduction in aircraft movements: a 67% drop for 5,314 rotations. Mohammed V airport occupies the first place with 48.63% of the traffic, far ahead of Tanger (11%) and Marrakech (9%). As for freight, it decreased by 35% to 5,429 tons.