From 7 to 10 October 2026, ESM was at the eighth Marrakech Airshow, held at the Royal Moroccan Air Force base in Marrakech, Morocco. Less than three months after Farnborough, this was the opportunity to meet the supply chain closer to home: Morocco and Tunisia are the two North African platforms of the European aerospace industry, and most European OEMs and tier-1 suppliers now have plants in one of the two countries, often in both.
27countries represented, with nearly 200 exhibitors
60+official delegations, including 27 from Africa
26strategic agreements signed
40,000+visitors, including more than 17,000 trade visitors
Closing figures released by the organiser (ASSAD) and the Moroccan Ministry of Industry and Trade, October 2026.
Why we went
- To meet customers and partners from the European supply chain where they are also investing: Morocco is now home to some 150 aerospace companies, from Boeing, Airbus and Safran to Thales, Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney Canada and Latécoère.
- To take the measure of the North African ecosystem: MAD 29.1 billion of aerospace exports for Morocco in 2025, more than €650 million for Tunisia, growth of around 10% a year on both sides, and two countries that European buyers increasingly read together.
- To follow the technologies and themes of this edition: industrial sovereignty, resilient supply chains, autonomous systems, satellites and sustainable aviation.
What we take away
The OEMs are investing in North Africa for the long term. Announced in Marrakech: an Africa Centre of Manufacturing Excellence hosted by Mohammed VI Polytechnic University with Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin and Safran, a new Safran Oil Systems plant, and Morocco's ambition to produce its first aircraft engine by 2027–2028. Boeing's forecast for the continent, presented during the show, takes the African fleet from 755 aircraft today to 1,625 in 2045.
For a build-to-print machining supplier based in Tunisia, the reading is clear: the region is becoming a structural part of the European supply chain, with the same programmes, the same standards and the same customers. And the message to suppliers is the same as at Farnborough: capacity, quality and on-time delivery. That is what we keep building in Ben Arous, with fifteen CNC machining centres bought new, eight of them five-axis, and an EN 9100 quality system on the path to Aero Excellence.
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Cover: a Moroccan aerial demonstration team over Marrakech, U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Brooke Rogers, public domain. Photos: Maj. Krystal Jimenez, U.S. Africa Command, public domain; U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Brooke Rogers, public domain. They illustrate the airshow, not ESM, and do not imply any endorsement.
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