Iran may receive first Boeing plane by June

EghtesadOnline: Iran says it expects to receive the first airplane from American aviation giant Boeing before June.

News ID: ۷۷۵۴۴۴

15 April 2017

Farhad Parvaresh, the managing director of Iran’s national flag carrier airline Iran Air, was quoted by the domestic media as saying that Boeing officials were in Tehran to discuss the matter, PressTV reported.

Parvaresh added that if Iran Air’s conditions were met, proceedings for the earlier-than-scheduled delivery of the plane that had originally been destined to be handed over to Turkey’s Turkish Airlines would begin.

“Considering that Turkish Airlines has announced that it is not ready to take delivery of the Boeing 777 [that it had ordered from the US company], Boeing has proposed to deliver the plane to Iran Air, instead,” Parvaresh was quoted as saying by Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

“We are currently discussing this matter with them (Boeing).  If Iran’s conditions are met, this plane would be most probably delivered to Iran within the next 45 days.”

US aviation giant has already made a $16.6 billion sale already to Iran Air and has also signed a $3 billion deal to sell 30 737 MAX aircraft to Iran's Aseman Airlines, a firm owned by Iran's civil service pension foundation. The first deliveries as per the deal between Iran Air and Boeing were previously expected to take place in 2018.

Boeing’s biggest European rival – Airbus – has signed another deal estimated to be worth some $25 billion to sell planes to the same company.

Airbus has so far delivered three planes to Iran and more deliveries are expected to be made in the near future.

Iran Air also this week signed a deal with the French-Italian aircraft maker ATR to purchase 20 new planes.  All the planes are expected to be delivered by the end of 2017.