Ryanair caught in the crossfire as Western Sahara flights become flashpoint for Morocco-Polisario political conflict

Direct flights from two European capitals to a city in a bitterly disputed north African territory have become the latest battleground in the conflict between a rebel group and Morocco.

Low-cost airlines have opened routes linking Madrid and Paris to Dakhla in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Questions over the legality of the flights have thrown their future in doubt. The Polisario Front, which controls about 20 percent of the territory, has threatened legal action if the European carriers maintain the routes.

For about 20 euros ($22), Virginia Santana can now take a three-hour flight every week from Madrid to Dakhla, located on a sandy peninsula that juts into the Atlantic, where she is supervising the construction of a hotel.

"This new route is revolutionary," the Spanish businesswoman, who is in her 30s, told AFP at Madrid airport as she waited for a flight to Dakhla.

Financed by Spanish investors, her hotel is a symbol of a tourism boom in the city and surrounding region, driven by Moroccan authorities who have stepped up their territorial claims.

Morocco controls around 80 percent of Western Sahara, where the United Nations has had a peacekeeping mission since 1991 in what it considers a "non-self-governing territory".

The UN mission is meant to prepare a self-determination referendum for the territory, which is rich in fisheries and phosphates. But Morocco has refused to allow a vote in which independence is an option and the showdown has been frozen.

Spain pulled out of Western Sahara in 1975, but after decades of neutrality, in 2022 it backed Morocco's proposal that the territory be granted autonomous status under Moroccan rule. France followed suit in 2024.

Encouraged by incentives given by Moroccan authorities, Transavia, a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, began Paris-Dakhla flights while Irish budget airline Ryanair started flights from Madrid.

"The latest connections launched have made it possible to double the international capacity of Dakhla airport, with around 47,000 seats available" in 2024, Moroccan Tourism Minister Fatim-Zahra Ammor told AFP.

Legal imbroglio

The Polisario Front opposes the flights. The movement's representative to UN agencies in Geneva, Oubi Bouchraya, told AFP that legal action was a possibility.

Moroccan authorities want to "impose a fait accompli of the occupation of Western Sahara by involving economic actors", Bouchraya said.

Any agreement regarding the territory must be approved by both parties involved, and the airlines "are operating outside international law", added the Polisario envoy.

The European Commission in December told the carriers the EU-Morocco aviation agreement "does not apply to routes connecting the territory of an EU member state to the territory of Western Sahara", he added.

But Spain's civil aviation authority AESA argues that the 1944 Chicago Convention, which coordinates international air travel, gives it the "unliteral right" over national airspace and it "does not need external consultation".

Airlines deny breaking rules

Ryanair said its operations on the route "comply with all applicable aviation regulations", without giving further details.

Transavia said its flights have all been "validated by the relevant authorities". But its operation licence, seen by AFP, only authorises the carrier to serve Morocco, raising the question of Western Sahara's contested status.

Contacted by AFP, France's civil aviation authority, the DGAC, referred the issue to the French foreign ministry, which did not respond.

The row over the flights follows a dispute over agreements signed in 2019 between Morocco and the EU regarding fishing and agriculture in Western Sahara.

After a long legal battle, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favour of the Polisario Front last year and invalidated the agreements, which it said were signed without the consent of the Indigenous Sahrawi people in the territory.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com