The Moroccan national company Royal Air Maroc (RAM) wants to quadruple its air fleet by the end of the next decade, in order to support the development of the tourism sector, under the terms of a program contract signed with the government on Tuesday.
“RAM will quadruple its air fleet, which will increase from 50 aircraft currently to 200 aircraft in the next 15 years,” according to a press release from the services of the head of government Aziz Akhannouch.
To date, its fleet is made up almost exclusively of Boeing-manufactured aircraft (46) and does not include any Airbus.
No Airbus at Royal Air Maroc
For comparison, Air France’s current fleet consists of 205 aircraft.
Aziz Akhannouch and the general director of Royal Air Maroc (RAM), Hamid Addou, signed an investment program contract on Tuesday in Rabat to respond to the tourism development plan that aims to attract 65 million visitors to Morocco by 2037. This represents about six times more visitors than today.
To this end, the participation of the State in the capital of the RAM will be reinforced “as part of the government’s support for the company’s investment project (…), the implementation of its development plan, support for its competitiveness and digitization and improvement of the quality of its services”, specifies the press release.
Asked, the head of government’s office would not say how high. The amount of the investment plan was not disclosed either.
RAM, one of the leading airlines in Africa, plans to acquire new aircraft in 2024 as part of the implementation of its development strategy, its CEO said at a press conference in Casablanca, quoted by the MAP news agency.
46 new service stations
Rescued by the State after the pandemic, the national airline also plans to open new international destinations and establish another 46 national services to promote domestic tourism.
On an international level, RAM is especially aimed at the African market, but also at the American and Asian markets. Finally, the air hub of Casablanca, a megalopolis and economic capital of the kingdom, must reinforce its role as a platform for international correspondence.
Hard hit by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, tourism is one of the pillars of the Moroccan economy and provides tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs. It recovered in 2022, with around 11 million tourists, a recovery rate of 84% of 2019 arrivals, according to official statistics.
The Cherifian kingdom intends to receive 17.5 million tourists by 2026 with an expected revenue of 120 billion dirhams (about 11 billion euros), says the Ministry of Tourism.
Source: BFM TV
