After Johannesburg, Cairo and Cape Town airports, Mohamed V airport in Casablanca is currently the fourth busiest in Africa. It was constructed in 1943 by the United States under the name “Berrechid Airfield”. The airfield served as a military stopover linking several Moroccan bases, like the Naval Air Station Port Lyautey (later called Kenitra Airport) and Marrakesh Airport on the North African Cairo-Dakar route. By the end of the World War in 1945, the airfield was closed and handed over to the civil government. The airport came to function soon as it was reopened in the 1950s as “Nouasseur Air Base” and was used as a United States Strategic Air Force Command during the Cold War.
With the Moroccan independence from the French rule in 1956 and the U.S. being fully out of the country by 1963, the Moroccan government gained possession of the airport and named it after the king Mohamed V. It is located 30km south-east of Casablanca and is connected with Casablanca’s port and the city center by a train whose journey lasts 45 minutes. The station is in the basement of terminal 1, with trains running every 60 minutes. There are also taxis available 24 hours a day outside Arrivals. The airport served 9.35 million passengers in 2017 and the number is on increase. More than 30 airlines fly from and to the airport with approximately 100 destinations worldwide. The most frequent of these are Paris, Istanbul, Jeddah and Marrakesh.