One hundred airplanes are grounded in Iran due to financial problems of domestic airliners caused by western sanctions, Mohammad Ali Ilkhani, managing director of the Iranian Airports Company (IAC), told Mehr news agency on Saturday. The grounded airplanes can only fly domestically and foreign airliners are seizing the opportunity to meet the country’s need for international flights; therefore, the majority of passengers traveling abroad are presently traveling by foreign airliners, he added. “Last year, there was a $4-billion outflow of money from Iran as Iranian airliners failed to compete with foreign airliners.”
