“On 3 December 2024 during the meeting on the Consultative Forum on EU External Aviation Policy, the Commission informed EU carriers that, in accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Euro-Mediterranean aviation agreement between the EU and Morocco does not apply to routes from the territory of an EU Member State to the territory of the Western Sahara.”

That is the answer given by EU Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism Apostolos Tzitzikostas, in response to a question by EU parliamentarian Lynn Boylan, on 20 January 2025. 

Boylan (Ireland, GUE/The Left) is the Standing Rapporteur for trade with the Maghreb in the EU Parliament's Committee for International Trade, and thus assigned to follow-up and make recommendations on how the EU deals with recent rulings by the EU Court of Justice that annul EU-Morocco trade deals being applied in Western Sahara without the consent of the people of the territory.

In her question that led to the Commission's statement, Boylan referred to the announcement by Irish low-cost airline group Ryanair in November 2024 that it would commence flights to Dakhla, a city in occupied Western Sahara. In its PR material advertising the new flight route, Ryanair had consistently located Dakhla in Morocco, which is factually incorrect. 

In 2018, the EU Court of Justice ruled the EU-Morocco Aviation Agreement inapplicable to Western Sahara, as the territory is not part of Morocco. See the chronology of the aviation legal case here. 

Ryanair's first flight to Dakhla took place on Sunday, 19 January 2025. On board were a Spanish journalist and two activists, who upon arrival were expelled by Moroccan police.

Western Sahara Resource Watch wrote to Ryanair on 18 November 2024. The firm has not responded.

Other than Ryanair, three other companies have operated flights into occupied Western Sahara in recent years, in addition to the Moroccan state-owned Royal Air Maroc: Transavia (a subsidiary of KLM-Air France), Air Arabia and Binter Airlines. 

The Commission's response to Boylan's question indicates that there is no legal framework in place that covers EU airliners' flights to Dakhla, occupied Western Sahara.

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