Summer 2026: Casablanca Airport Hits Record 46,439 Passengers in 24 Hours

On Sep 1, 2026

Marrakech – Casablanca’s Mohammed V Airport handled 46,439 passengers in 24 hours over the first weekend of August, a level Airports of Morocco, formerly known as the National Airports Office (ONDA), describes as historic. The figure appears in the operator’s newly released frequentation data for the 2026 summer season.

The surge extended beyond the economic capital. Marrakech-Menara crossed the threshold of 30,000 passengers in a single day. Rabat-Salé received 9,226 travelers, while Agadir-Al Massira handled 11,973 and Tangier Ibn Battouta 13,309 on their respective peak days. Dakhla and Tétouan posted the sharpest gains, with peak-day increases of 45.2% and 36.14%.

These summer peaks extend a trend already visible in 2025, when national air traffic crossed a record 36.3 million passengers. For the authority, the levels reached this season point to what it calls a now-lasting rise, part of a growth trajectory it considers structural.

This upswing has held through this year. Morocco’s airports received 22,282,997 passengers in the first seven months of 2026, up 8.77% from the same period a year earlier, according to ONDA. International traffic rose 8.82% to 19,894,489, while domestic traffic grew 8.36% to 2,388,508. In July alone, the airports handled 3,450,846 passengers.

Casablanca Mohammed V remained the busiest gateway over the seven months with 6,953,695 passengers, followed by Marrakech-Menara at 6,407,303. European travelers drove the international growth, accounting for 16,541,007 passengers, up 9.29%. Aircraft movements reached 164,164 through the end of July, up 9.82%, and air freight totaled 66,980.55 tons, a gain of 12.61%.

The rising volumes come as Morocco expands its network ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which it will co-host with Spain and Portugal. Under the “Airports 2030” strategy, the country aims to raise nationwide capacity from roughly 34 million to 80 million passengers a year by 2030. A 2025-2030 agreement between the government and ONDA provides for MAD 38 billion ($3.8 billion) in investment.

Casablanca anchors the program. Work on a new hub terminal began in July 2025, with the MAD 15 billion ($1.5 billion) facility designed to accommodate 20 million additional passengers a year and raise the airport’s total capacity to 35 million by 2029. The broader Casablanca project also includes a new runway.

Marrakech-Menara is due to double its capacity from eight million to 16 million passengers, and Agadir-Al Massira is being expanded to handle seven million, up from roughly three million now.

Transport and Logistics Minister Abdessamad Kayouh has tied the program to World Cup preparations and to sustained growth in air transport, a strategy welcomed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Managing the summer rush relied on coordination among several bodies alongside Airports of Morocco, among them the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity, the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN), the Customs and Indirect Taxes Administration (ADII), the Royal Gendarmerie, and Royal Air Maroc (RAM).

The operator said capacity expansion, infrastructure modernization, service digitalization, and journey optimization accompany the shift in travel patterns and prepare the network for the next stages of its growth.

It committed to “a transformation on the scale of this new level of traffic,” with the ambition to strengthen the network’s capacities, accelerate air connectivity, and make airport performance “a decisive factor in Morocco’s international attractiveness.”

Separate figures released on July 28 showed border processing grew faster over the first half of 2026, with passage times down as much as 70% at some airports.

Nationwide, the average passport control time fell to 3.6 minutes on departure, down 24%, and to 9.6 minutes on arrival, down 22%. Casablanca led the improvement, where arrival times dropped 54% to 5.4 minutes and departure times fell 70% to 2.25 minutes.

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