Morocco plans to control the airspace over the Sahara. The proposal will be discussed at the next high-level meeting with Spain scheduled for November, but which could be postponed.
The airspace above the Sahara is under the control of the Spanish and Mauritanian authorities, which authorize commercial planes serving South America and Europe to fly over it, as well as Moroccan military planes carrying out operations there. This is the reason why Morocco would like to have control of this airspace, political sources tell Ok Diario.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), every plane, commercial or military, that transits through this area must report to the Air Traffic Control Center located at Gando airport, where the army also operates. Spanish air. Air traffic controllers point out that military planes and Moroccan fighter planes frequently fly over this area without informing the center.
For reasons of organization and security of air traffic, Morocco informs most of the time the Canary Islands of the presence of its planes above the sky of the Sahara. But the good or bad state of diplomatic relations between Spain and Morocco affects this collaboration. In May 2021, after the massive onslaught of migrants in Sebta, Moroccan military flights stopped reporting on their activities in the airspace of the Sahara, Canarian air traffic control sources explain.
Morocco wants Spain, in particular Enaire, to renounce this air control in favor of the National Airports Office (ONDA). Mohammed VI will make this proposal to Pedro Sanchez during the high-level meeting scheduled for November, assure the same sources, adding that if Spain ceded the airspace, it would thus have given all of the Sahara to Morocco, after declaring in may support the Moroccan autonomy plan for this territory.
