Boeing willing to resume direct flights to Iran
By Sara Rajabova
Boeing voiced its willingness to start a technical process that could lead to the resumption of direct flights between Iran and the U.S.
Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization Alireza Jahangirian said the American airplane maker has received an authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department over procedures required for establishing Iran-U.S. flights.
"Boeing has already started to talk with Iranian companies to finalize the relevant deals for supplying the spare parts required for resuming flights," Jahangirian added.
Current sanctions prohibit Iranian airlines from flying to the U.S, and the Times of Israel noted last year that the Treasury Department has pursued sanctions specifically against Iran Air.
Treasury Department Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen wrote in the New York Times in 2012, "Iran Air is not simply a passenger airline. Rather, Iran Air provides material support to two organizations deeply involved in Iran's weapons proliferation - the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, which oversees Iran's ballistic missile program, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which orchestrates arms shipments to and from Iran. That is why, in June 2011, we imposed sanctions specifically on Iran Air."
Attending the 68th session of the UN general assembly in New York last September, President Hassan Rouhani pledged to facilitate travelling to homeland for Iranian expatriates residing in the U.S., Tasnim News Agency reported.
Rouhani issued an order for studying the possibility of resuming direct flights between Iran and the U.S. to facilitate visits for the two countries' nationals.
Afterwards, former Iranian Civil Aviation Organization chief Hamid Reza Pahlavani announced that Iran was ready to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. on direct flights.
Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Ali Mohammad Nourian announced last December that three Iranian airlines have requested to launch direct flights between Iran and the U.S., Mehr News Agency reported.
Nourian added that all the three airlines are fit to have long-distance flights.
Necessary preparations have been made and if negotiations in the coming days move in a positive direction, they will be ready to launch the flights by the end of 2013, he said on November 19.
Nourian noted that flights will be chartered in the initial phase, adding that some American and Canadian airlines have also expressed readiness to fly passengers between the two countries by their Boeing 777 planes.
The U.S., particularly Los Angeles, is home to hundreds of thousands of Iranian expatriates.
Travelers between Iran and the U.S. currently have to change flights in a third country, usually Europe or the Persian Gulf states. Although personal trips are generally exempted from U.S. sanctions, experts say there are a couple of major obstacles before an Iran-U.S. direct flight can resume.
The U.S. Treasury has barred Iranian airlines, including Iran Air, from landing or operating in the U.S. Furthermore, extraterritorial U.S. sanctions prevent European airports from providing Iranian carriers with fuel or accepting their money.
Unlike the U.S. fights, Iranian airlines can still travel directly to London, but are denied re-fuelling. Iran Air has at least three flights a week to London, but has to stop in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to refuel each time it returns to Tehran. Ljubljana's airport has no direct flights to the U.S.
The U.S. and Iran broke diplomatic relations in April 1980, after Iranian students seized the United States' espionage center at its embassy in Tehran. The two countries have had tense relations ever since, but have shown willingness to attend talks to help resolve regional issues, including security in Iraq. In spite of that, the two countries have avoided talks on bilateral issues for the last thirty years.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, but Iran has denied the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.