Spain Warns Airlines to Avoid Western Sahara Airspace Amid Regional Conflict

According to the newspaper El Confidencial, on February 4, Enaire urged, through the air traffic control center in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, civil aircraft to "avoid overflying the airspace of Western Sahara and not to fly below 24,500 feet (FL245) in the small portion of Western Sahara under the air traffic control jurisdiction of Dakar".

Three air corridors are affected by Enaire’s alert. These are UY601 and UT975, used by aircraft connecting Europe to South America, and UN728 which connects Western Sahara to the Canary Islands. Currently, apart from Royal Air Maroc (RAM), no Spanish airline is overflying the Canary Islands to Laayoune or Dakhla, the two main cities in the Sahara.

Three months ago, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US civil aviation agency, had already warned of the risk of a resumption of the war in the Sahara, since the Royal Armed Forces had expelled, without opening fire, the Sahrawi civilians who were blocking the road connecting the Guerguerat border post - Mauritanian Customs.

"Spain is responsible for the management of the airspace over Western Sahara by decision of the International Civil Aviation Organization as the international authority in this matter," the government of Mariano Rajoy acknowledged four years ago. Today, the Spanish authorities seem indifferent to the conflict in the Sahara and do not publicly support the Moroccanness of the Sahara, as the United States has done.