Madrid has been working hard to help repatriate some 3,000 Spanish tourists who are stranded in Morocco after it suddenly imposed a blockade on passenger flights to Spain because of the pandemic.
The Moroccan government announced that all passenger flights to and from Spain and France would be suspended from midnight to contain the spread of the virus.
“This is another example of how we have to be extremely responsible with our trips at this moment,” Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said.
“At a time of so much uncertainty at borders and regarding rules to enter other countries, it is best to abstain from travel, that is what is most prudent,” she said.
The government has been looking into ways to help Spaniards who are affected by the flight ban to get home, the minister added, without giving details.
The flights ban comes during Easter week, a peak travel period in Spain as Thursday and Friday were holidays in much of the country.
Morocco is one of Africa’s most popular tourist destinations, welcoming 13 million foreign tourists in 2019, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.
Spanish airline Iberia repatriated up to 348 Spaniards of those who have been stranded in Morocco on Sunday , 148 more than initially planned when programming a larger plane, after the closure of air connections with Spain and France were decreed on 31st March by the authorities.
Initially, Iberia had scheduled a 200-seater A321 plane for the afternoon’s flight but, in order for the greatest number of people to return, it had to swap and operate this service with an Airbus A350, with a capacity for 348 passengers.
As planned, the flight departed Casablanca at 4:40pm and arrived in Madrid at 7:20pm. Some 3,000 Spaniards who had travelled on holiday to Morocco for Easter found themselves trapped in the Maghreb country following the decision of its authorities to suspend flights. Iberia reported that, in addition, it will be the first time that the company has landed in Morocco with its latest generation aircraft model, the most sustainable and quiet in its fleet.
Throughout the crisis of the covid-19 , Iberia has worked closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Union and in the first months of the pandemic of coronavirus , made more than 50 repatriation flights, even to some destinations such as Australia or the Philippines, where it hadn’t flown before.