Ch-aviation:
Following the lifting of international sanctions against Iran on Saturday, January 16, so Iranian Minister of Transport Abbas Akhoundi has announced plans to acquire
up to 114 aircraft from
Airbus Industrie(AIB,
Toulouse Blagnac) for
Iran Air (IR,
Tehran Mehrabad).
Expanding on Akhoundi's comments, internal Iranian government sources who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity said the
deal involves A320 and A340 Family jets with finalization due in the next few weeks.
The first aircraft could be delivered as early as July, they said.
In the long term, Iran Air is also looking at the A350, the
A380-800, as well as the B737 and B777 from
Boeing (BOE,
Chicago O'Hare), to serve the Iranian diaspora in North America, Australia, and Europe, the sources added.
At present, Iran Air operates four
A300-600s, five
A300B2/B4s, two
A300B4(F)/C4/F4s, two
A310-300s, six A320-200s, one
B747-200(F), three
B747-200(M)s, one
B747SP, fourteen
Fokker 100s, and five
MD-82s all with an average age of 26.3 years.
The United States imposed sanctions on Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution and the subsequent US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran. For over three decades, Iranian airlines have been unable to legally source aircraft younger than twenty years of age or manufacturer-endorsed spare parts for their respective fleets. Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhundi, last estimated that the country's carriers would require at least 500 new aircraft over the next five years to replenish and upgrade their fleets.