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Marrakech – Airports of Morocco, formerly National Airports Office (ONDA), announced on Friday the appointment of El Arbi Es-Sobaihi as director of Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca.
The move comes as the country’s largest airport accelerates its transformation to absorb air traffic growth and meet the targets of the Airports 2030 strategy, according to the office.
Es-Sobaihi is a senior ONDA executive with more than twenty years of experience in airport operations. He previously ran terminal operations and then the operations department at Mohammed V. Since 2025, he has held strategic coordination duties across the airport’s various departments.
He also worked on several structural projects, among them the commissioning of Terminal 1 in Casablanca.
His mandate now centers on steering the transformation of the kingdom’s main hub. Airports of Morocco defines the mission as raising operational performance, improving the passenger experience, and supporting the territorial development carried by the Airports 2030 vision.
The office frames the challenge for the new director and airport teams as managing “sustainable traffic growth” while lifting performance on the indicators that count: punctuality, passenger flow, quality of reception, safety, coordination of operations, and passenger satisfaction.
The airport authority also presents the appointment as a deliberate turn toward “profiles from the field,” managers familiar with the realities of airport operations, to lead what it calls one of the most significant transformations the Moroccan sector has known.
That transformation carries a clear deadline. Casablanca concentrates a decisive share of national air traffic, remains Morocco’s principal gateway to major international networks, and is positioned as the country’s main point of entry ahead of the FIFA 2030 World Cup. The target is to lift annual capacity to 35 million passengers by 2030, against 15 million today.
The centerpiece of that plan is a new terminal. In January, the office awarded the construction contract to the all-Moroccan SGTM-TGCC consortium for MAD 12.8 billion ($1.28 billion), the largest airport worksite ever launched in the country. Total investment in the project is estimated at MAD 15 billion ($1.5 billion), with completion expected by late 2029 after a 40-month build.
ONDA points to the pace of the process itself, conducted in roughly eighteen months from infrastructure programming through architectural and technical studies, with eight months between the April 2025 call for expressions of interest and the award of the contract.
Designed by RSHP and ALA Concept, the H-shaped terminal covers 600,000 square meters across three main levels. It will handle 20 million passengers a year in a first phase, extendable to 30 million, and will accommodate up to 45 aircraft at contact stands at once.
Its undulating roof references the Atlantic, while the ochre ceiling beneath, structured by a hexagonal pattern and punctuated with skylights, draws on bejmat and terracotta zellige. Landscaped oases, retail zones, a large duty-free area, VIP lounges, and an airport hotel overlook the runways.
The works extend beyond the building. A new parallel runway measuring 3,700 meters by 45 meters, taxiways, aircraft stands, and a new control tower are part of the package, alongside a direct connection to the Kenitra-Marrakech high-speed rail line.
The terminal alone will absorb 20 million additional passengers annually, reinforcing Casablanca as an intercontinental hub between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and supporting Royal Air Maroc (RAM)’s expansion. The project is expected to generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs.
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