Business Aviation
by Peter Shaw-Smith
Plans for Tit Mellil Executive Airport, which is expected to open in 2025, are complete, Zouhair El Aoufir, CEO of the Moroccan Airport Authority (ONDA), reported in late September. He then called for international investors to pledge $40 million to its development, to match a $20 million commitment from the government.
“We have four phases in the study of the project,” El Aoufir told AIN at the MEBAA Morocco conference in Marrakech. “Now we are in the number four phase: looking for investors. We are doing a roadshow, and everything is now ready [to move ahead].” Tit Mellil is 15 km from Casablanca city center and 32 km from Casablanca Mohammed V, the nation’s main scheduled gateway.
El Aoufir gave new details on ONDA’s plans to construct a new runway, as well as MRO, support, parking and helicopter facilities. He said the 2,200-meter (7,218-foot) runway, running from northwest to southeast, would replace an existing taxiway, which is considered too short. “The idea [is] to fit all the long-range business jets, such as BBJs and A319s [and aircraft of these types],” he said.
Hamid Benbrahim El Andaloussi, head of the Groupement des Industries Marocaines d’Aéronautique et Spatiales (GIMAS) and widely considered the founder of Morocco’s aerospace cluster in Casablanca, told AIN at the MEBAA conference that Morocco is an important crossroads between both the U.S. and the Middle East, and Europe and Africa, and that the African continent held enormous potential for Morocco.
