Flights in Moroccan airports drop by 72% up to November due to pandemic

Commercial flights dropped by 72% in Moroccan airports due to the pandemic with Marrakech airport being the most hit.

Morocco’s first tourist hub, Marrakech, saw airport activity shrink 75% in the first 11 months of this year while the second tourist destination, Agadir, saw flights decrease by 71%, the national airport agency ONDA said.

Only 2.7 million people travelled through Casablanca’s airport, the largest in the country, that is a drop of 71.5%.

Morocco has allowed some special flights to resume linking tourist hubs to main tourist emitting markets in Europe. But the advent of the new variant of the coronavirus has complicated international travel once again.

 

In this vein, Morocco has banned travels to and from the UK and Denmarl.

 

Morocco has imposed a curfew and ordered restaurants to close in key tourist destinations, namely Agadir, Casablanca, Marrakech, and Tangier, in a bid to control the spread of the virus ahead of the launch of a mass vaccination campaign.

Tourist arrivals have dropped by 78% up to September this year while tourism receipts shrank 60% to 24.3 billion dirhams, the tourism minister Nadia Fettah Alaoui told MPs last month.

The summer peak season, in particular, was marred by a 98% drop in foreign tourists and 56% in residents.

The Minister said that 35% of tourism workers lost their jobs as turnover at 400 surveyed tourism companies dropped 80%.

Morocco has kept its airspace closed except for some exceptional flights. Tourists are allowed in from the exceptional destination provided they have a hotel reservation.

On November 4, Morocco registered a daily record of infections of 5745 new cases.

So far, total Coronavirus Cases stand at 435,189, while fatalities reached 7,314.