TEHRAN –Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines resumed its flights to Isfahan on Sunday after almost a year of suspension over the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the schedule, two flights per week will be carried out between Isfahan and Istanbul under strict health protocols and with the 50 percent of seat capacity, the deputy provincial tourism chief Heidar Sadeqi announced on Monday. 

Back in September, and following months of ups and downs, the flag carrier resumed its flights to Tehran after six months of halt.

Outbound passengers are required to hold a health certificate with a negative coronavirus PCR test result, otherwise, the boarding pass won’t be issued for them.

In late August, Turkish Airlines extended the suspension of its flights to Iran until October 1, reneging on its previous announcement for resuming flights to Tehran and four other cities of Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Isfahan as of September 1.

Although Turkey resumed flights to many countries in June and July after few months of suspension over the COVID-19 pandemic, it kept its common borders with Iran closed, while these repeated delays in the reopening Iran-Turkey borders have damaged the tourism ties between the two countries.

As Turkey is a country through which many trips of Iranians living abroad and foreign nationals to Iran are made, the flight suspensions prevented several businessmen and students from continuing their activities and even left patients who want to go abroad for further treatment helpless.

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.

ABU/