TEHRAN - Managing Director of Iran’s National Airline (Iran Air) said the U.S. sanctions have not stopped Iran’s aviation industry’s continuous development, IRNA reported.

Speaking in a memorial ceremony on Tuesday, Touraj Dehqani Zanganeh noted that since the U.S. re-imposed sanctions on the country all the technical checking and maintenance operations are being carried out by Iranian experts and the country is self-sufficient in this regard.
He further pointed to transporting 30 million passengers in year, as one of the achievements of Iran’s national airline, saying that currently the country’s fleet is comprised of 300 airplanes.
Training specialist forces inside the country and establishing numerous knowledge-based companies active in the aviation industry were among other achievements which the official mentioned in his speech.
“Despite the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deals and re-imposition of the sanctions which ended Iran Air's cooperation with foreign partners, the Airline will go on providing its services and reaches new achievements,” Dehqani said.
On January 28, 2016, Iran Air signed a deal with the French giant plane maker Airbus for the purchase of 118 Airbus jets worth $27 billion and it also inked a deal with Boeing on December 11, 2016 to buy 80 aircrafts valued at $16.6 billion. It was Iran’s biggest deal with an American company since the 1979 revolution.
And in April 2017, Iran Air signed a contract to buy 20 planes from Franco-Italian turboprop maker ATR.
However, just a few number of the ordered planes (three Airbuses and 13 ATRs) were delivered before Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal and imposed new sanctions on Iran.
Now under the new U.S. sanctions, international plane manufacturers that use at least 10 percent U.S. made parts in their products have decided to avoid the Iranian market.
EF/MA