Airbus says the US government has granted it a license allowing it to sell the first 17 planes involved in a landmark deal with Iran.
Airbus Spokesman Justin Dubon told AP on Wednesday that Airbus received the license from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Dubon said the first 17 planes will be A320s and A330s. He declined to offer a breakdown of how many of each are involved in the initial sale.
Earlier this year, Iran Air signed agreements to buy 118 planes from the European consortium Airbus, estimated to be worth some €22.8 billion ($25 billion).
The deal was made possible by last year’s historic nuclear agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for it limiting the scope of its nuclear program.
On Monday, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development, Asghar Fakhriyeh Kashan, announced that Iran has reduced the number of airplanes it plans to buy from Airbus by six amid delays in US regulatory approvals.
“There are six fewer aircraft. These are the ones that were due to be delivered in 2016,” he said on the sidelines of the CAPA Iran Aviation Finance Summit in Tehran, adding that the country may knock one plane off a similar deal for more than 100 with Boeing.
Speaking at the CAPA conference, western envoys sought to allay Iranian concerns over the delays in approving the airplane deals. They expressed optimism the deals would go ahead and reiterated their commitment to last year’s nuclear deal.
The US go-ahead for Airbus to sell planes to Iran is expected to be shortly followed by the same move for the French planemakers American rival Boeing.
Boeing’s chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, speaking at the Farnborough International Airshow in Britain in July, said if his company could not sell planes to Iran Air then “nobody should”.
Speaking on the first day of the two-day summit on Sunday, Fakhriyeh said Iran has been told that the United States will issue export licenses within weeks to facilitate the purchase of Boeing and Airbus jets and European ATR turboprop planes.
Approval had been expected by the end of August, but that has been pushed back to the end of September, Reuters quoted Fakhrieh as saying.
“Today we are expecting that (approval) by the end of September for Boeing, Airbus and ATR,” he said, adding that failure to issue the required US approval would breach an agreement between Tehran and world powers to ease sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities.
The House of Representatives in July passed two amendments that would stop the aircraft sales to Iran, including non-US ones, due to the high proportion of US parts.
Iran estimates it will need at least 400 aircraft to renew and expand its fleet, including some 250 in the next 10 years.
Besides the aircraft sales, Iran is dangling the prospect of significant business for western companies, including nationwide airport expansion as it emerges from decades of sanctions.
“There are more than 60 airports in Iran but 80% of flights are in just 10 and these are working beyond capacity; that is why we need to develop,” Akhoundi said.
