2.8 million passengers passed through Moroccan ports during Operation Crossing the Strait 2024

2.8 million passengers, including 2 million Moroccans residing abroad (MRE), and 662,000 cars passed through Moroccan ports in both directions during the period from 5 June to 5 September, in the framework of the Marhaba 2024 or Strait Crossing Operation, according to figures published by the Ministry of Transport and Logistics in a communiqué.   

This number represents an increase of 5.5% for passengers, 17% for MREs and 9.5% for vehicles compared to the same period in 2023.  

In order to improve the maritime component of the Operation Crossing the Strait, the Moroccan Ministry mobilised 29 ships this year in order to make 535 weekly trips and with a weekly transport capacity of approximately 500,000 to 130,000 vehicles, the communiqué stresses.  

The same source states that the Ministry carried out the technical inspection of all these vessels before the start of the operation to ensure their compliance with international safety standards, stressing on this point that it also carried out regular checks on the quality of the services offered on board the vessels mobilised in the framework of Operation Crossing the Strait 2024.  

As for the distribution of traffic by port, Tangier Med took the lion's share with a total of 1.62 million passengers and 427,000 cars in transit (57% of total traffic), followed by the ports of Tangier Ville (23%), Nador (19%) and Al-Hoceima (1%).  

Peak flows into the Kingdom were recorded on 3 and 4 August, with around 80,000 passengers and 20,000 cars. 

The last ten days of August - coinciding with the departure phase - were very intense, with around 460,000 passengers and 103,000 cars passing from Morocco to the other side of the Mediterranean. 

According to the Ministry, the adoption of pre-booked tickets, at a fixed date and time, played a key role in smoothing flows, particularly on the busy maritime lines between Tangier Med and Algeciras, and Tanger Ville and Tarifa.