Morocco will have a military aircraft maintenance center

This project is the result of a strategic partnership between the Moroccan government and the aforementioned groups which will result in a Moroccan joint venture Maintenance Aero Maroc (MAM). This was the subject of an agreement signed between the parties concerned, in the presence of the Minister Delegate in the presence of the Head of Government in charge of National Defense Administration, Abdellatif Loudiyie. According to the Bluberry press release, this new partnership meets the support needs of the Royal Air Force.

This agreement provides for the construction of a maintenance, repair and upgrade center for military aircraft, including fighter planes and helicopters on Lockheed Martin platforms. This center will be erected on an area of ​​15,000 m² at Benslimane airport. More than 300 jobs will be created thanks to this project.

According to the same source, the first maintenance activities should begin this year on the Lockheed Martin C-130.

This project represents the first achievement within the framework of the recent law aimed at allowing the Kingdom of Morocco to develop a military-industrial and defense activity and to derive strategic and economic advantages from it.

“Our Group has 50 years of experience in the maintenance, repair and modernization of aircraft such as the C-130 and the F-16,” said Stéphane Burton, CEO of the Blueberry Group. “We are extremely proud to begin this new partnership with the Kingdom of Morocco and Lockheed Martin, providing high quality sustainment services for the Moroccan Air Force and then rapidly to other customers in the region. We are very happy to see MAM joining our international network of MRO&U Solutions, offering opportunities to develop new expertise on other platforms.

For her part, Danya Trent, Vice President of Lockheed Martin – F-16 Program, said that Morocco will be provided, by virtue of this cooperation, with the best possible industrial facilities, equipment, training and certifications to support the needs in sustainment of the Royal Moroccan Air Force and other customers.

This is one of the first concretizations of Morocco’s military industrialization project, which aims to become one of the pioneers of military industries at the regional level. The Kingdom has acquired a specific legal arsenal after the entry into force, at the end of June 2021, of Law No. 10-20 relating to defense and security materials and equipment, weapons and ammunition.

Recall that the Blueberry group has been operating in Morocco since 2012 through its subsidiary Sabca Maroc, which recently announced its investment of more than 180 million dirhams in the construction of an assembly line for Pilatus, Airbus and Dassault aerostructures in Nouaceur. It also participated in the modernization of its Dassault Mirage F1 and Alphajet planes of the Kingdom.