Recently, four Airbus 340 have entered Iran, which will soon join the country’s air fleet, the deputy head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization for international affairs said.
The announcement by Hassan Khoshkhou came after four Airbus A340-300s took off from O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Dec. 23, ILNA reported
After takeoff, the planes flew along the east coast of Africa, along the Persian Gulf, and then toward Iran.
While the flight plans for these planes indicated that they were headed to Uzbekistan, in reality they disappeared from radar over Iran, and landed at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, according to a report published in One Mile at a Time.
For context, all four of these planes were former Turkish Airlines Airbus A340-300s, which left the carrier’s fleet in 2018 and 2019. The planes were purchased by a company in Hong Kong named Avro Global, which exclusively owned these four planes. For the past few years, the planes have simply been parked at Johannesburg Airport, and were registered in Guernsey.
There wasn’t much sign of activity until recently, when the planes were re-registered in Burkina Faso with new registration codes — XT-AKA, XT-AKB, XT-AKK and XT-ALM.
Then shortly these planes started their journeys out of South Africa. The A340s were all produced between 1996 and 2000, so they’re 22-26 years old.
The United States has sanctions against Iran, prohibiting companies from selling US-made products to Iran. This obviously presents a major challenge for Iran Air and Mahan Air, Iran’s two largest airlines. They operate outdated fleets, as they can only get secondhand planes.
Even the planes they get secondhand are largely acquired illegitimately, given the restrictions in place that prevent these kinds of transactions. There’s now new satellite footage showing these four planes parked in Tehran, the report noted, adding that it is highly likely that these jets will be going to Mahan Air, Iran’s largest private airline.
Mahan Air already flies several Airbus A340s, most of which used to fly for Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic in the past.
“This seems to basically be the standard way that Iranian airlines get around sanctions and take delivery of planes,” it concluded.
Severe Shortage of Passenger Planes
Iran needs 550 passenger planes in its air fleet to be able to adequately meet market demand, the head of Civil Aviation Organization of Iran, Mohammad Mohammadi-Bakhsh, said in a recent meeting of government officials about the state of the country’s air transportation.
“A full-blown war is being waged by world powers against the Islamic Republic in the aviation industry. We are pursuing our goals in four areas of manufacturing, repair and buying secondhand, in addition to brand new aircraft,” he was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
In an interview with IRIB News, Mohammadi-Bakhsh, who doubles as deputy minister of transportation, said 175 planes are currently operating in Iran’s air fleet.
“We have a total of 335 planes, 175 of which are operational and the rest have been grounded,” he said, adding that 11 of the 175 operational planes are used to only transport cargo.
Iran’s aviation sector has for years been facing US sanctions that prevented it from procuring vital spare parts for repair, leaving many planes grounded and causing technical problems every now and then that result in incidents.
Hamid Ghavabesh, former head of Iranian Airlines Association, earlier told the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad that even the operational planes in Iran have their own limitations when it comes to flying.
“Note that operational planes are not capable of flying for a long time; many of these planes fly only twice, the total efficiency of Iranian planes is between three and four hours; sometimes they are incapable of flying after one roundtrip,” he said.
“This is while the young planes of Iran's neighboring airlines, such as the airlines of Arab countries and Turkey, are able to fly for a full day.”
The former head of the Iranian Airlines Association noted that the average age of planes in the Arab countries and Turkey is five to six years whereas the average age of Iranian aircraft is estimated to be 28 years; some older aircraft are also among Iran’s air fleet.
“Except for the limited number of planes purchased after the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [Iran nuclear deal], there is no new aircraft in the Iranian air fleet,” he added.
Fifteen planes were purchased after JCPOA, 13 of which were small ones manufactured by ATR Aircraft. In other words, only 4.5% of Iranian aircraft are new.
Even the newly purchased ATR planes have run into technical problems now.
“Almost all of these planes [ATRs] have been grounded, but we plan to get them back to flying over time,” he was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency on Dec. 19.
Mohammadi-Bakhsh noted that the Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer failed to live up to its commitment after the sale of ATR planes to Iran.
“They even failed to provide us with technical publications and maintenance manuals, let alone parts,” he noted.
Iran was also delivered two Airbus after JCPOA revival, one A321, and two A330s.
According to the CAO chief, the European multinational aerospace corporation has also failed to provide the needed support and after-sales services.
Low productivity and frequent repairs of Iran’s old planes have increased the prices of air tickets; the operation of small airlines is not economically feasible, pushing some of them to the brink of bankruptcy. They are renting or selling their old aircraft to other larger airlines.
“Supplying parts is very expensive. Purchasing aircraft parts under sanctions at times imposes a 30% higher cost on airlines. Some aircraft parts dealers take advantage of sanctions and sell substandard parts to Iranian airlines, which raise the risks of air transportation in the country,” Ghavabesh said.
