Ryanair connects Dakhla with Madrid and Lanzarote in a direct way
The airline Ryanair is launching two new direct routes: Dakhla-Madrid and Dakhla-Lanzarote.
From January 2025, the Western Saharan city will benefit from two new direct air connections thanks to an agreement between the Irish low-cost airline and the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT).
The new routes will connect Madrid, the Spanish capital, and Lanzarote, one of the famed Canary Islands, with two flights a week each.
The Dakhla-Madrid flight will be the city's first direct connection to the Iberian Peninsula via Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport. As for the Lanzarote-Dajla route, it will strengthen connections with the Canary Islands, a key market for tourism to Dakhla due to the geographical proximity between the two points.
These two new connections will double the international air capacity of Dakhla airport, reaching 47,000 seats, and will make Spain the leading player in outbound tourism for this market.
This is a historic agreement to develop the tourist destination of Dakhla, an enclave located in the south of Morocco with warm temperatures all year round and an attractive natural environment.
As part of this agreement, a memorandum of understanding was also initialled between the ONMT and Ryanair in the presence of the Moroccan Minister of Tourism, Fatima Zahra Ammor, Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson and Yanja El Khattah, President of the Council of the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Region.
The agreement extends over the next four tourist seasons and provides for the scheduling of four new international air routes to Dakhla. The first phase of the agreement starts in January 2025 with two routes connecting Dakhla airport with Madrid and Lanzarote, with a frequency of two flights a week.
Following the launch of these routes, Ryanair will become the fourth ONMT partner to cover a direct air route to Dakhla, after Royal Air Maroc, Binter Canarias and Transavia.
This development is part of a strategy aimed at strengthening Dakhla's air connectivity and attracting more European tourists as part of Morocco's economic plan to boost the Western Sahara region.
The Moroccan kingdom plans to develop Western Sahara, which it claims as an integral part of its southern provinces, to the maximum extent possible in defence of its territorial integrity.
Morocco defends its Autonomy Plan, which proposes broad autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty while respecting the postulates of the United Nations (UN). This initiative would give the Saharawi authorities great room for manoeuvre in many areas, leaving defence and foreign policy in the hands of the Moroccan state.
This proposal has received the support of more than 100 countries, which consider it to be the most serious, credible and realistic proposal to resolve the Sahrawi territorial conflict, which has lasted almost five decades since Spain's departure from the area as a colonial power.
It is seen as the most viable solution to make Western Sahara a prosperous territory in several areas such as the economic, social, etc. .....
This proposal is opposed by the Polisario Front, which advocates holding a referendum on independence for the Sahrawi population, which for several analysts poses difficulties such as those related to the elaboration of an electoral census, as it is necessary to take into account which Sahrawis would vote, because there are several Sahrawi populations scattered both in the Moroccan environment of Western Sahara and in the refugee camps of Tindouf in Algeria.
