TEHRAN – Head of Iran Airports and Air Navigation Company (IAC) announced on Sunday a $76-million decline in the country’s aviation industry revenues during 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

According to Siavash Amirmokri, the air passenger numbers in Iran decreased by 52 percent in 2020, the IAC Office of Public Relations reported.

The country’s air traffic also declined by 67 percent during the mentioned time span.

Speaking in a gathering of aviation industry managers at the place of IAC, Amirmokri noted that despite the problems created by the coronavirus pandemic IAC managed to inaugurate 28 major development projects in 14 different airports across the country over the past year.

The mentioned projects include the construction of 21 new aircraft parking stands and renovation and improvement of over 1.3 million square meters of airport spaces.

Implementation of the said projects has added 50,000 square meters to the Iranian airports’ terminal space, according to Amirmokri.

The IAC head also announced the completion of several other development projects at various airports, including Mehrabad, Mashhad, Gonabad, Ardabil, Birjand, Saqez, and Ilam in the upcoming Iranian calendar year 1400 (begins on March 21).

Based on the international aviation data, global air traffic declined by 60 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, according to Amirmokri.

"The number of air passengers in 2019 was about 4.5 billion, which declined by 1.8 billion in 2020; airport revenues also decreased by 65 percent ($112 billion),” he said.

Airlines also saw a 66-percent drop in passenger traffic, and the world's air navigation revenue fell by $13 billion, he added.

Back in June 2020, Transport and Urban Development Minister Mohammad Eslami had said that plans were in place for adding new terminals and runways to the existing airports across Iran to further increase the capacity of the airports by another 10 million passengers per year.

“These airport projects include the passenger terminal, runway, control tower, radar system, and navigation system,” he said, adding that finishing those projects would greatly boost aviation safety in Iran.

Iranian airports currently have the capacity to handle more than 60 million passengers a year.

EF/MA