Royal Air Maroc's 70th aircraft — a Boeing 737 MAX 8 registered CN-RHS — touched down as the airline's latest milestone in a government-backed expansion programme that will not reach full speed until 2028 at the earliest. The carrier announced the addition on 28 September via its social channels, framing it as a step toward a 200-aircraft fleet targeted by 2037, according to Business Insider Africa.
The arithmetic of that ambition is steep: going from 70 to 200 aircraft in roughly 12 years means adding an average of more than 10 jets annually. Royal Air Maroc's 2023–2037 development programme, backed by the Moroccan government, targets 31.6 million passengers per year alongside the enlarged fleet. Major deliveries under a large expansion tender are not expected until 2028, meaning leased aircraft are doing much of the near-term heavy lifting.
The commercial logic behind the build-out is straightforward. Morocco welcomed 19.8 million tourists in 2025, a 14% increase over 2024, according to the country's tourism ministry. The government's own target is 26 million visitors by 2030, when Morocco co-hosts the FIFA World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal. Tourism already accounted for 7.3% of Morocco's GDP in 2024, per the OECD's 2026 country review — making reliable, affordable air connectivity a first-order economic concern for hotels, tour operators, and the wider service sector, not just the airline.
Airport infrastructure is being scaled to match. Morocco has announced plans to lift national airport passenger capacity from 30 million to 80 million annually by 2030 under its Airports 2030 strategy, with Casablanca's Mohammed V International Airport positioned as the pivot point for connections across four continents. A separate $1.5 billion investment specifically to expand Mohammed V has already been announced ahead of World Cup preparations. The government's $4.2 billion broader World Cup infrastructure plan includes transport and stadium upgrades that will test Morocco's ability to coordinate across ministries and contractors simultaneously.
For African travellers specifically, the Casablanca hub play has real stakes. If Royal Air Maroc successfully builds out frequencies and competitive fares on intra-African and intercontinental routes, Casablanca could emerge as a credible rival to Addis Ababa's Bole International — Ethiopian Airlines' hub — for transit traffic between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe or the Americas. Ethiopian Airlines currently operates one of the continent's largest fleets, well above 100 aircraft, setting a clear benchmark for what regional dominance looks like in practice.
That said, the gap between fleet count and commercial performance deserves scrutiny. Adding an aircraft changes capacity; it does not automatically create a profitable new route or reduce fares for passengers. Royal Air Maroc has historically been weakest on intra-African connectivity — the very segment where demand is growing fastest and where Air Peace, Kenya Airways, and Ethiopian Airlines compete aggressively. A 70-aircraft fleet, even growing, needs a route strategy as ambitious as the procurement plan.
Investors and operators watching Morocco should also note the sequencing risk. The bulk of ordered aircraft arrive from 2028 onward, just two years before the World Cup. That is a narrow runway to train crews, certify routes, ramp up ground handling capacity at an airport being simultaneously reconstructed to nearly three times its current throughput, and hit a passenger target that is 60% above current arrivals. Each of those variables carries its own delay risk.
Why it matters: Morocco is making one of the most capital-intensive bets on tourism-led aviation growth anywhere on the continent — 200 aircraft, 80 million airport passengers, a $4.2 billion World Cup build-out, and a 7.3%-of-GDP tourism sector all converging on 2030. The numbers are real, the timeline is tight, and the commercial return will hinge less on fleet size than on whether Royal Air Maroc can convert expanded capacity into competitive, frequently flown routes that African and international travellers actually choose.