TEHRAN – The “flydubai”, legally named Dubai Aviation Corporation, is scheduled to resume its Iran services as coronavirus-related restrictions are being eased across the globe.  

The official procedures needed for reusing Iran-UAE flights have been returned to normal and [Iranian] airlines can apply directly to the UAE national airline and receive a permit, the Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi announced, IRNA reported on Saturday.

“Upon the request and follow-up [discussion] of this embassy to issue a flight permit for passengers from Iran, the flight permit from Iran to the United Arab Emirates (Lar to Dubai) has been issued”.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs [and International Cooperation] has announced that the flight procedures on the Iran-UAE route have been returned to normal and airlines can apply directly to the UAE's national airline and obtain a license, the embassy explained.

The government-owned budget airline has announced that flights are available to be booked on flydubai.com, initially to Iran and several other destinations.

“Flights are available for booking from today and will operate from 07 July. We are initially planning to operate to 24 destinations and we will continuously add destinations and flight frequencies to the network and we expect this to increase to 66 destinations over the course of the summer. This, of course, will be dependent on countries being able to open up and accept international travel,” the airline’s website quoted Hamad Obaidalla, Chief Commercial Officer of flydubai, as saying on Wednesday.

Passenger traffic at Iranian airports was plunged by 80 percent in the first month of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20) in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, IRNA reported in May. The pandemic also resulted in a decrease of 70 percent and 79 percent respectively in the number of flights and cargo transport, the report added.

AFM/MG