TEHRAN – Turkey's flag carrier Turkish Airlines has announced that it is scheduled to resume its flights to Tehran and four other major Iranian cities in September.

“Turkish Airlines, the national flag carrier of Turkey, announced in its latest flight schedule that it will resume flights to five Iranian cities of Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Isfahan early in September,” ILNA quoted Maqsoud As’adi-Samani, a senior Iranian aviation official, as saying on Tuesday.

Talking about Iran-Turkey flights operated by Iranian carriers, the official said they will also be reestablishing in parallel with their Turkish-operated counterparts.

“With the resumption of Turkish flights to Iran, Iranian flights to Turkish cities will also begin, and it is not the case that flights will be operated only with the Turkish airline.”

Giving a brief on the timetable, As’adi-Samani said “According to the schedule, 21 flights per week will be carried out to Tehran, four flights per week Tabriz and four per week to Shiraz as of September 1. And two flights per week will be made to the cities of Mashhad and Isfahan in a two-times-a-week agenda.”

The pandemic has taken a huge toll on Iran’s civil aviation sector with reports showing that airlines lost hundreds of millions of dollars because of flight cancellations during the busy New Year travel season in late March.

Some 1.37 million Iranian tourists visited Turkey during the first eight months of 2019, accounting for 4.4% of all international arrivals in the country.

AFM/MG