Mohammed V International Airport

Mohammed V International Airport Aéroport international Mohammed V مطار محمد الخامس الدولي
IATA: CMN ICAO: GMMN CMN Location of airport in Morocco
Summary
Airport type	Public
Operator	ONDA
Serves	Casablanca, Morocco
Location	Nouasseur
Hub for	Air Arabia Maroc Jetairfly Royal Air Maroc Royal Air Maroc Express
Elevation AMSL	656 ft / 200 m
Coordinates	33°22′02″N 007°35′23″W
Website	www.onda.ma
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 17L/35R 3,720 12,205 Asphalt 17R/35L 3,720 12,205 Asphalt
Statistics (2009, 2010)
Aircraft movements (2009) 69,119 Passengers (2010) 7,245,508 Freight (tons) (2009) 53,469
Source: DAFIF

Mohammed V International Airport (IATA: CMN, ICAO: GMMN) (Template:Lang-fr / Template:Lang-ar / transliterated: Matar Muhammad al-Khamis ad-Dowaly) is an airport operated by ONDA (National Airports Office). Located in Province of Nouaceur, a suburb 30 km south-east of Casablanca, it is the busiest airport in Morocco with almost 7.25 million passengers passing through the airport in 2010. It was named after the late Sultan Mohammed V of Morocco.

The airport is the hub of Morocco's flag carrier Royal Air Maroc, Jetairfly, Air Arabia Maroc and RAM Express. The airport was named after King Mohammed V of Morocco and is twinned with the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Yaser Arafat International Airport.

History

Origins

The Casablanca Mohammed V Airport was originally built by the United States in early 1943 during World War II as an auxiliary airfield for Casablanca's Anfa Airport and was named Berrechid Airfield. The airfield handled various military transports as a stopover en route to Port Lyautey Airfield or to Marrakech Airport on the North African Cairo-Dakar transport route. In addition, flights were flown across the Atlantic to the Azores on the Mid-Atlantic route which connected to Nova Scotia or East Coast United States airfields.

In addition to its transport mission, the airfield supported the North African Campaign with the Twelfth Air Force 68th Reconnaissance Group operating photo-recon versions of the P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang from the airfield. Elements of the 68th first arrived at Angads Airport in Oujda in November 1942 and moved to Berrechid in March 1943 upon its completion. It flew both antisubmarine missions over the Atlantic and photo-recon combat missions over German-held territory from the airfield until early September when it moved east to Massicault Airfield in Tunisia. With the end of the war in 1945, the airfield was turned over to the civil government.

During the Cold War of the early and middle 1950s, the airfield was reopened as Nouasseur Air Base and was used as a United States Air Force Strategic Air Command staging area for B-47 Stratojet bombers pointed at the Soviet Union. These operations later moved to Ben Guerir Air Base.

With the destabilisation of French government in Morocco, and Moroccan independence in 1956, the government of Mohammed V wanted the US Air Force to pull out of the SAC bases in Morocco, insisting on such action after American intervention in Lebanon in 1958. The United States agreed to leave as of December 1959, and was fully out of Morocco in 1963. SAC felt the Moroccan bases were much less critical with the long range of the B-52, and with the completion of the Spanish bases in 1959.

Even today, most locals still refer to the airport simply as "Nouasseur", this comes from the name of the suburb where it is located.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

A Qatar Airways Airbus A330-200 on the airport ramp in 2011.

A Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737-800 at the airport in 2006. The airline has its main hub at Mohammed V Airport.

Airlines	Destinations	Terminal
Afriqiyah Airways	Tripoli	2
Air Algérie	Algiers, Oran	1
Air Arabia Maroc	Amsterdam, Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Bergamo, Bologna, Brussels, Cuneo, Fez, London-Gatwick, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Lyon, Montpellier, Nador, Tangier, Toulouse, Venice-Marco Polo Seasonal: Málaga, Oujda, Paris-Charles de Gaulle	2
Air France	Marseille, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly (begins 31 March 2013), Toulouse	2
Air Mediterranee	Paris-Charles de Gaulle	2
Alitalia	Rome-Fiumicino	2
Binter Canarias	Gran Canaria	2
EasyJet	Lyon, Milan-Malpensa, Paris-Charles de Gaulle	2
EgyptAir	Cairo	2
Emirates	Dubai	2
Etihad Airways	Abu Dhabi	2
Germanwings	Cologne/Bonn	2
Helitt Líneas Aéreas	Málaga	2
Iberia	Madrid	2
Jetairfly	Bologna, Bordeaux, Brussels, Brussels South-Charleroi, Lyon, Marseille, Milan-Malpensa, Paris-Orly, Toulouse Seasonal: Barcelona, Brussels	2
Libyan Airlines	Sebha (begins 20 January 2013),Tripoli	2
Lufthansa	Seasonal: Frankfurt	2
Mauritania Airlines International	Nouakchott	2
Qatar Airways	Doha, Tunis	2
Royal Air Maroc	Agadir, Algiers, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beirut, Bologna, Cairo, Dakhla, Fez, Istanbul-Atatürk, Jeddah, Laayoune, Madrid, Málaga, Milan-Malpensa, Montréal-Trudeau, New York-JFK, Riyadh, Rome-Fiumicino, Tangier, Tripoli, Tunis, Valencia	1
Royal Air Maroc	Abidjan, Accra, Bamako, Bangui, Banjul, Berlin-Tegel, Bissau, Bordeaux, Brazzaville, Brussels, Conakry, Copenhagen (begins 25 March 2013), Cotonou, Dakar, Douala, Frankfurt, Freetown, Geneva, Kinshasa, Lagos, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (begins 1 April 2013), Libreville, Lisbon, Lomé, London-Gatwick (resumes 27 March 2013), London-Heathrow, Lyon, Luanda, Malabo, Marseille, Marrakech, Monrovia, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Nantes, Niamey, Nice, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou, Ouarzazate, Oujda, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Pointe Noire, Praia (Cape Verde) (begins 7 March 2013), Stockholm-Arlanda (begins 2 April 2013), Strasbourg, Toulouse, Yaoundé Seasonal: Al-Hoceima, Kano, Medina, Tétouan	2
RAM Express	Al Hoceima, Agadir, Dakhla, Essaouira, Fez, Ifrane, Lisbon, Madrid, Málaga, Marrakech, Nador, Oujda, Tangier, Tan Tan, Tunis Seasonal: Guelmim, Tetuan, Ouarzazate, Zagora	2
Saudia	Jeddah Seasonal: Dammam Charter: Medina	1
TAP Portugal	Lisbon	2
Tunisair	Tunis	2
Turkish Airlines	Istanbul-Atatürk	2
Vueling	Barcelona (begins 16 May 2013), Paris-Orly (begins 1 June 2013)	2

Cargo

Airlines	Destinations
Air France Cargo	Nairobi, Paris-Charles de Gaulle
DHL Airways	Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Madrid, Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Med Airlines Maroc	Bamako, Dakar, Lisbon, Paris-Orly, Tangier
Royal Air Maroc Cargo	Addis Ababa, Algiers, Barcelona, Beijing-Capital, Brussels, Cairo, Dubai, El Aaiún, Hong Kong [begins 27 March 2013], Libreville, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Milan-Malpensa, Paris-Orly, New York-JFK, Recife [begins 23 March 2013], Rome-Fiumicino, Tangier, Washington-Dulles [begins 29 March 2013], Zaragoza
UPS Airlines	London-Gatwick, Louisville, Madrid, Newark, Rome-Fiumicino
Turkish Airlines Cargo	Istanbul-Atatürk, Madrid

As part of the development of the airport, and since Casablanca is one of the main trading and industrial cities in the southern Mediterranean, the cargo operations will expand in the next few years. A 30,000 square metres (320,000 sq ft) cargo facility opened in 2008, with an annual processing capacity of 150,000 tonnes (150,000 long tons; 170,000 short tons).

Traffic

Traffic	2010		2009		2008		2007		2006		2005		2004	Average growth 2004-2009
Aircraft movements	n/a	-	69,119	+1.11%	68,362	-2.5%	70,080	+7.6%	65,111	+9.2%	59,621	+13.9%	52,336	+5.86%
Passengers	7,245,508	+13,28	6,395,862	+2.95%	6,209,711	+6.0%	5,858,192	+15.5%	5,071,411	+12.1%	4,456,639	+17.1%	3,803,479	+10.73%
Freight (tons)	n/a	-	53,469	-6.06%	56,919	-6.5%	60,682	+9.3%	55,673	+10.7%	50,285	+6.5%	47,152	+2.79%

Passenger Services

VIP Service

Mohammed V is one of the six airports in Morocco where ONDA offers its special VIP service Salon Convives de Marque.

Hotels

Casablanca Mohammed V Airport has two airport hotels, the Atlas Hotel which is a 3 star hotel owned by Atlas Hospitality (a subsidiary of the Royal Air Maroc Group) and a hotel inside the transit area of terminal 2 which offers rooms for shorter periods exclusively for transiting passengers.

Incidents and accidents

• On 24 August 1994 a Royal Air Maroc ATR-42 crashed near Tizounine while en route from Agadir to Casablanca Mohammed V airport. The plane crashed with a steep dive in the Atlas mountains. All 40 passengers and 4 crew died in this accident. It is said that the captain disconnected the autopilot and let the plane crash deliberately. The Moroccan Pilots Union challenged these findings.

• On 1 April 1970, a Royal Air Maroc Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle crashed on approach to Casablanca Mohammed V airport when it lost control at a height of about 500 feet. The fuselage broke in two. Sixty one of the 82 passengers and crew were killed.

Transport links

Car

Mohammed V airport can be reached via the A7 Casa-Berchid motorway via Bouskoura. From Rabat use the A3 then the A5.

Rail

The train station is situated at level -1 in the arrivals area of Terminal 1. Trains depart from the airport to Casablanca every hour and takes you to AIN SEBAA where you can change to different directions.

Bus

Bus company CTM operates services to Casablanca Mohammed V airport from the city center.

Taxi

The taxi rank is located at level 0 of the arrivals area.

External links

• Mohammed V International Airport
• Moroccan Airports Authority
• Current weather for GMMN at NOAA/NWS
• Accident history for CMN at Aviation Safety Network