Royal Air Maroc has said that the open skies agreement between Europe and Morocco is simply unfair and needs to be readjusted, per a report by Médias24 and carried by Simple Flying. The comments came as the company faces increasing competition from European airlines, including low-cost giant Ryanair, hampering its operations and stealing market share. The aviation market between Morocco and the EU is a significant tourism corridor.
Questioning the Open Sky
Royal Air Maroc has said that the agreement needs to be revised. In particular, the chief executive officer of the airline, Abdelhamid Addou, called for the revision at a conference on competition in Marrakesh.
“In terms of regulation, it is time to review the approach of the Open Sky to make it a tool that preserves competition. When we try and open new routes in Europe, it is a lot more complicated. We talk about Open Skies and Closed Airports.
There are a multitude of reasons and rationales: sometimes it’s a question of reorganisation, sometimes it’s air pollution. It seems that our planes make more noise than planes from northern countries, even if they come from the same manufacturers! Some airport managers get up on the wrong side of the bed on certain mornings and don’t give traffic authorisation to companies like ours.”
He clarified that the position of Royal Air Maroc within the framework of the Open Skies agreement puts it at a disadvantage, allowing European carriers access to a significant African market, while carriers in the Global South continue to face restrictions in operating to the continent.
Addou observed that “we are in an exercise of variable geometry and it is time that we respect, a bit more, the companies of the South and that, when we talk about competition, it is genuine and human competition.”
Similarly to what Tunisia and Egypt did, Addou called on Morocco to renegotiate their current agreement on aviation with the EU.
Royal Air Maroc “is the public enterprise that has the most competitors in our company, around forty competing airlines. There is no other sector that is open, to this extent, to competition.”
Addou did admit nevertheless that the agreement had initially been signed in order to facilitate the development of the tourism and aviation sectors in Morocco.
The Euro-Mediterranean aviation agreement
Provisionally applied since December 2006 and officially entered into force in March 2018, the Euro-Mediterranean aviation agreement between the EU and Morocco allows for the “opening of market access for all European Union – EU (European Community) and Moroccan airlines.”
It covers several aspects, including:
Economic rules: allowing unlimited traffic between the EU and Morocco, over other territories, establishment of rules to ensure fair competition, and rules on airport and aviation facility charges.
Regulatory cooperation: increased cooperation in terms of safety, standards and EU legislation on air traffic management.
Institutional arrangements: the enforcement of the rules included in the agreement, the creation of a Joint Committee to meet yearly at least for oversight.
At the time of the initial signing in 2006, Jacques Barrot, European Commission vice president said:
“We now have an innovative text which is far superior to the conventional open-skies agreements. This agreement will bring the respective countries closer together, and shows us what can be achieved in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership”.
Growing traffic
According to Cirium data, the number of two-way flights between Europe and Morocco have increased by a whopping 16 percent based on a comparison of November 2023 and 2024. The largest airlines this November in terms of flights are as follows:
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Ryanair: 3,600 two-way flights, offering 698,000 seats, representing a 10 percent increase compared to the same period last year. In March, Ryanair became the first foreign airline to operate domestic flights within Morocco.
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Royal Air Maroc: 2,300 flights, 346,000 seats, which is an overall five percent increase.
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easyJet: 1,500 flights, 278,000 seats, amounting to a 35 percent increase compared to November 2023.
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Air Arabia: 1,440 flights, 251,000 seats, meaning a 23 percent increase.
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Transavia: 855 flights, 161,000 seats, culminating in a five percent decrease.
Royal Air Maroc is the only premium carrier in this market’s leaderboard, sandwiched between low-cost giants. The carrier has its work cut out to maintain its position on services to Europe.
