Mohammed V International Airport Aéroport international Mohammed V مطار محمد الخامس الدولي
Inside the main terminal
IATA: CMN – ICAO: GMMN
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		ONDA
Serves		Casablanca, Morocco
Location		Nouasseur
Hub for		Air Arabia Maroc Jet4you Regional Air Lines Royal Air Maroc
Elevation AMSL		656 ft / 200 m
Coordinates		33°22′02″N 007°35′23″W / 33.36722°N 7.58972°W / 33.36722; -7.58972
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)
Aircraft movements			69,119
Passengers			6,392,789
Freight (tons)			53,469
Source: DAFIF

Mohammed V International Airport (IATA: CMN, ICAO: GMMN) (French: Aéroport international Mohammed V / Arabic: مطار محمد الخامس الدولي‎ / 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 6.4 million passengers passing through the airport in 2009. It was named after the late Sultan Mohammed V of Morocco.

The airport is the hub of Morocco's flag carrier Royal Air Maroc, Jet4you, Air Arabia Maroc and Regional Air Lines. 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.

Emblem of Strategic Air Command of the United States Air Force

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.

Terminals, airlines and destinations

Terminal 2

Exit stamp from airport.

Mohammed V International Airport
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Mohammed V International Airport
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Mohammed V International Airport - A Qatar Airways Airbus A330-200 on the airport ramp in 2011.
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Mohammed V International Airport - A Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737-800 at the airport in 2006. The airline has its main hub at Mohammed V Airpor
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Mohammed V Airport has three terminals:

• Terminal 1 is closed for renovation and expansion works. Check-in is still open and departures are restricted to Terminal 2.
• Terminal 2
• Terminal 3 is currently used for the listed departing flights only; all arrivals are at Terminal 2

Cargo airlines

DHL Airways Boeing 757 at the airport

The main cargo operators are:

• Air France Cargo
• DHL Airways
• FedEx Express
• Royal Air Maroc Cargo
• UPS Airlines

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 sq metre cargo facility opened in 2008, with an annual processing capacity of 150,000 tonnes.

Traffic

Passenger Services

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.

Bus

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

Taxi

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

The content above was published at Airports-Worldwide.com in 2010.
We don't guarantee the information is fresh and accurate. The data may be wrong or outdated.
For more up-to-date information please refer to other sources.