Iranian Civil Aviation
Iran has over 330 airports, and more than 120 of which had paved runways. Of those, 41 (40 paved and one unpaved) had runways 3,000 meters or longer. International airports are located at Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad, Bandar-e Abbas, Bushehr, Esfahan, and Shiraz, and on the islands of Kish in the Persian Gulf and Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz. In 2004 Iran’s airports served about 4.3 million international passengers, about two-thirds of whom flew on domestic airlines. Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran has an annual capacity of 6.5 million passengers, but its final design capacity is 40 million passengers and 700,000 tons of cargo. Plans called for a gradual expansion of services. In 2007 some 14 heliports also were in operation.
Iran's commercial airline companies suffered from years of sanctions which prevented them from buying new aircraft, or even making repairs to existing aircraft with manufacturer-produced parts. The sanctions have a negative effect on passenger safety for Iranians, and the average age of aircraft in flagship carrier Iran Air's fleet is 27 years. In 2010 most of Iran Air's planes were banned from flying to the European Union because of the Europeans' safety concerns.
Head of Iran?s Civil Aviation Organization Hamid Reza Pahlevani announced in 2013 that a number of home-made passenger planes, capable of carrying 80, 100 and 150 passengers, will join the country?s air fleet soon. The Islamic Republic planned to manufacture three domestically-designed passenger planes by 2026, Pahlevani said in January. Iran aims to fly its first Antonov-158 jointly built with the Ukrainian company as early as 2013. The new air vehicle with a seating capacity of 100 passengers will be the next generation of Iran-140 airplane. After purchasing the production license for the Antonov-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003. The first IRAN-140 aircraft was introduced by Iran in 2003. Five domestically-manufactured IRAN-140 planes were completed in October 2008 to increase the country's transportation capacity and upgrade the Iranian passenger fleet. The IRAN-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft which can fly almost 1,865 miles before re-fueling and its passenger model seats 52 people.
On 10 August 2016 the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran (CAOI) said the process has begun to exit 27 ‘out of service’ (OTS) airplanes from three Iranian airports. Reza Jafarzadeh, Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization public relations office, made the announcement saying “all Iranian airlines have been required to depart their grounded aircraft from airports within three months with the aiming to improve safety, reduce delays as well as to take optimal advantage of existing capacities.”
“Accordingly, grounds have been provided for carrying out 27 OTS aircraft from Tehran’s Mehrabad, Mashhad’s Shahid Hashemi Nejad as well as Zahedan airports,” he underlined. The official went on to maintain that the aircraft were Boeing 747, Boeing 727, Fokker 100, Airbus 300, BAE, and Falcon 20 adding “10 airplanes belong to Iran Air, 11 to Mahan Air, five to Aseman Airines Company and one to Pouya Cargo Air.”
In 1992 Mahan Air was established as the first Iranian private Airline, and by 2015 was larger than even state flag carrier Iran Air. By 1993 Mahan Air took off on its median voyage and begins domestic service between Tehran and Kerman. Number of employees increased to nearly 100. By 2012 the Mahan fleet enlarged to 45. The number of flights to Erbil & Ankara increased. The number of passenger carried by the airline had a 5% growth. The flight frequency had a 14% increase. In 2013 Mahan air spread its wings to Kuwait from Tehran & Shiraz. Mahan commenced double weekly flight to Guangzhou. and in 2015 it started flight to Munich - adding 9 aircraft to Mahan air fleet - scheduling 6 new international routes (Bahrain, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Athens, Milan and Sochi).
Mahan Air Cargo provides Cargo Services used for the transport of commercial freight, products requiring special attention like perishables, live animal and high value commodities and cargo inside the Mahan Air passenger network while we using the cargo space available in the passenger aircraft fleet operating scheduled and charter services as well as dedicated network operated by wide-body aircraft with capability of large amount of cargo space.
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