Official: Foreign Aviation Companies, Airlines Willing to Join Iranian Market

A large number of foreign aviation companies and airlines have voiced their willingness to start operations in the Iranian market after an interim deal was reached between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), a senior trade official announced on Sunday.
“Iran is certainly a lucrative market for foreign companies such as Boeing and Airbus and they are looking to expand their mutual cooperation with Iran,” Deputy Managing-Director of Iran’s ATA Airline Mehdi Abdollah Abiyaneh told FNA on Sunday.

He underlined that many foreign firms have voiced their readiness to launch cooperation with their Iranian peers after the recent round of talks between Iran and the G5+1.

Abiyaneh noted that his company has recently purchased two Boeing MD83 passengers planes to increase the number of the seats of the country’s passenger fleet by 320.

Earlier this month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that a large number of foreign companies are waiting for a comprehensive deal between Tehran and the G5+1 to rush for investment in the Iranian market.

“Hundreds of foreign companies have prepared themselves to enter Iran in the coming months,” President Rouhani said, addressing a large crowd of people in Golestan province, Northern Iran.

Since 2010 Iran has started a plan to renew its air fleet not only through purchase of foreign planes, but also through domestic production in a bid to improve conditions in its aviation industry.

In August 2010, former Iranian Road and Transportation Minister Hamid Behbahani announced the country’s plans to import 13 Boeing MDs and six Airbus passenger planes in a matter of months.

The same month, another aviation official announced that all of Iran’s Tupolev airplanes would be replaced with Boeing MD.

Also, Iran Air Tours, another Iranian airline company using Tupolev planes, announced in October, 2010 that it had replaced its Tupolev planes with two Boeing passenger planes in line with the country’s plan for replacing the Russian plane with safer airliners.