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China-Africa Trade Information Service
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Morocco's National Airports Office (ONDA) will provide MAD 4 billion ($368.3 million) in 2023 to support the growth of airports in Marrakech, Agadir, and Tangier.
Through this investment, ONDA aims to provide optimal services in terms of air navigation, development, and airport operations. It also intends to share its expertise and know-how internationally with other operators around the world.
“We have identified a number of airports that were already experiencing capacity saturation of some of their modules well before the pandemic,” Director General of ONDA Habiba Laklalech said.
“With the period of Covid-19, the situation has been slowed and some investments postponed the time to have more visibility in relation to the resumption of traffic,” she added.
As part of its strategic plan “Flight 2025,” ONDA focuses heavily on sustainability.
Developed in 2012, the “Flight 2025” plan aims to improve the quality of the country’s air navigation services and airport operations, while expanding Morocco’s aviation infrastructure to increase passenger capacity.
“In all infrastructure projects that we will undertake, we will integrate the environmental dimension from the time we start the design until the time we build the airport,” the general director of ONDA emphasized.
The new action plan also places greater emphasis on digital transformation, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, ONDA will gradually implement technology such as paperless check-in and contactless biometrics.
According to Laklalech, this technology “will raise the capacity and operational efficiency of existing facilities and bring high added value for passengers at the same time as reducing the need to invest in costly new infrastructure.”
Digitalization “is no longer a choice but an imperative,” she concluded.