Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Tuesday

the 9th of July. And today I'm talking to one of the most important people in European aviation,

Eddie Wilson. He's the chief executive of Ryanairdack. And right now, you're in Tangier Eddie what's going on?

We're just announcing our operation or opening of our fourth base here in Tangier

so we've got two aircraft operating from Tangier we're going to have 20 routes here but

importantly we're going to have and like we've already operated from here but now we we're sort of solidifying here with a base, and we've got a great mixture of international and now domestic groups as well. So if you come to Tangier, you don't have to come across in a ferry anymore from Spain. You can fly direct point to point from the UK and many other places in Europe

and then you can fly within Morocco from Tangier to places like Agadir, Marrakesh

and wazazet out in the desert and places like that it's fabulous you know and as a swera down in

way down on the coast here so it's it's a further extension of Reiner's footprint here in the kingdom in

Morocco. I'm particularly intrigued Eddie about what you've managed to do in terms of African aviation.

Because for decades I've been watching aviation in Africa, it's, I'm sorry to say,

generally been a basket case with very few

exceptions such as the excellent Ethiopian airlines, but you seem to have persuaded the Moroccan

government that you are going to turn yourself into the Moroccan national airline. First of all,

is that correct? And secondly, can you replicate that

elsewhere? I don't think we'd like to surpass, I mean, Royal Air, Morocco. I think what we have is that

we have a long history here in Morocco. We started back in 2006, and we've worked very closely as we've gradually got through each stage of our growth

first we had in-bounds we had then we didn't then we progressed the bases then we moved more

we moved out of marrakesh which is probably the best inbound or best known destination. And then gradually we've got to a size whereby from Rainer's operational model, we need to utilize the aircraft.

And if you utilize the aircraft and the aircraft start here in Morocco and flying north into Europe,

you need short sectors to get the best utilization of the aircraft. And the best way to do that is with shorter domestic things.

But also that sort of crosses over with the economic development of this country,

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