Qeshm Air CEO Mahmoud Shekarabi was quoted as saying that his company planned to buy 10 Boeing 737 MAX and 10 Boeing 737 Next Generation planes from the American planemaker.

“Memoranda of understanding have been signed in this regard,” he said on the sidelines of the opening of national flag carrier Iran Air’s Catering in Tehran on Monday, Tasnim news agency reported.

Qeshm Air is also negotiating an order for 15 Airbus A320 and A319 jets from the European manufacturer and another 10 planes from Canada’s Bombardier, he said.

“These negotiations are underway, but there are a number of problems,” Shekarabi said without elaboration.

The company may also consider buying Sukhoi Superjet 100s from Russia but “we do not currently have any plans for it,” he added.

Last week, two other Iranian airlines said they had signed deals for the purchase of 40 short-haul passenger aircraft from the Russian company.

The purchases were made by Aseman Airlines and Iran Air Tours and the related documents were signed on the sidelines of Eurasia Airshow 2018 in Turkey’s Anatolia.

Aseman signed a final deal last June to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets in Iran’s first new business with the US planemaker since Trump took office vowing to take a tougher stance toward the country.

Iranian domestic carrier Zagros Airlines also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to buy 20 Airbus A320neo jets and eight A330neo aircraft, while privatized Iran Airtour signed an MoU for 45 A320neos.

The biggest orders, however, were made by Iran Air which has agreed to buy 80 aircraft from Boeing and 100 from Airbus in addition to 20 from Franco-Italian ATR company.

The deals were made possible after US-led sanctions against Iran were lifted in early 2016 under a nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and other countries.

Last year, Iran Air received three brand-new Airbus jets and eight new ATR turboprops. According to an official, Iran should receive 14 new passenger aircraft this year from Airbus, Boeing and ATR planemakers.

However, there are questions of what would happen to the deals if Trump went ahead with his threat to withdrew the US from the nuclear agreement on May 12 and whether the US Treasury would extend licenses for sales of the parts which are built in the United States.

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Iran Air will take delivery of two ATR 72-600s at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Friday.

Two ATR72-600 aircrafts will be shipped into Homa Airlines by Iranian pilots after the grand tests in French city of Toulouse.

Iran Air CEO is scheduled to travel to France on Tuesday, to finalize necessary documents regarding the two airplanes.

Iran is gradually receiving the passenger planes purchased from Airbus, ATR , and Boeing, following the implementation of the JCPOA.

Back in April 2017, Iran Air signed a contract with ATR to buy 20 planes from turboprop maker ATR.

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Kish Airline CEO Mohammad Taqi Jadidi was quoted by the domestic media that the plan envisaged buying 10 planes from Boeing and 6 more from Airbus.

Jadidi told Iran’s IRNA news agency that the new Airbus planes would be added to his company’s fleet before the end of the current Iranian calendar year (21 March 2018).

He added that Boeing planes would be purchased in the next Iranian year.

Nevertheless, the official did not specify which specific models the purchases would involve.

Kish Airline belongs to Kish Free Zone Organization and currently has 14 planes, including 2 Airbus-320, 2 Airbus-321, seven MD planes and 3 Fokker-100 planes, IRNA added in its report.

Airbus has already sealed deals to sell a total of 173 new aircraft to Iranian airlines with a collective value of tens of billions of dollars.

On the same front, Boeing had accrued orders and options for 140 planes, while the smaller European turboprop-maker ATR attracted orders and options for 40 aircraft.

Iran Air – the country’s national flag-carrier airline – appears to be the most active buyer of new planes. The company would buy a total of 220 new planes from Airbus, Boeing and ATR, covering both wide and narrow-bodied jets as well as turboprops. Airbus and ATR made their first deliveries of several planes over the past few months but Boeing deliveries would start in 2018.

Among the country’s smaller carriers, Iran Aseman Airlines would buy 30 new Boeing 737 Max 8 jets, with options for 30 more.

Iran Airtour would also purchase 45 Airbus A320neo aircraft.

And Zagros Airlines would acquire 28 Airbus aircraft, including 20 of its A320neo model and eight of its larger A330neo.

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Only a day after two Iranian airlines announced deals to purchase planes from Airbus, another Iranian carrier said it has sealed a third deal to buy advanced aircraft from US plane-maker Boeing, Press TV reported.

The head of Qeshm Air said on Friday that the company had placed an order for 10 Boeing 737 MAX planes.

Mahmoud Shekarabi was quoted by Fars News Agency as saying that the purchase of an additional five planes from Boeing 737-800 family was also on the agenda.

He added that relevant deal would be signed with the US aviation major within the next two months.

The purchase, he underlined, followed months of negotiations in Mexico and Iran.

The official further said Boeing would obtain the required licenses from the US Treasury Department for the sales of planes to Iran, adding that deliveries would be made after 2022.

On Thursday, European aviation giant Airbus says it has signed basic agreements with two Iranian airlines on the purchase of a total of 73 planes.

Also, Zagros Airlines CEO Abdolreza Mousavi told the domestic media that his company would lease the planes from Airbus.

In its statement Airbus added that the agreements with Zagros Airlines and Iran Airtour were contingent upon all necessary approvals, including those from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

On the same front, Reuters quoted Airbus Sales Chief John Leahy as saying that he expected the US approvals within the next couple of months.

Zagros is already the largest operator of Airbus single-aisle aircraft in Iran with 11 A320ceo planes, AFP said in a report on the agreements.

Like Airtour, Zagros will use the new planes to upgrade its fleet and expand operations both at home and internationally, AFP quoted Zagros chief as saying in the Airbus statement.

Iran Airtour was established as a subsidiary of Iran’s national flag-carrier airline Iran Air in 1992 and privatized in 2011 but maintains a status as subsidiary of IranAir.

Zagros Airlines is a private carrier.

IranAir has already ordered 100 planes from Airbus, 80 from US rival Boeing and 20 ATR turboprops.

Boeing has also signed a deal for 30 737 MAX jets with Iran’s Aseman Airlines, which is managed as a private company and owned by Iran’s civil service pension foundation, Reuters added.

According to estimates from the Iranian civil aviation authority, the country’s airlines will need to purchase between 400 and 500 new planes over the next decade, AFP wrote in its report on the Airbus deals with Zagros Airlines and Iran Airtour.

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Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development for International Affairs Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan was quoted by Press TV as saying that nine financial institutions from Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Britain, China and Japan had already approached Iran to fund the purchases.

He did not disclose the names of the interested financers.

Nevertheless, he underlined that arrangements to hold a tender to choose the financier for the purchases were underway, adding that tender documents would be sent out to potential bidders within a month.

Last week, he was quoted by THE media as saying that Britain’s key export credit agency — UK Export Finance (UKEF) — had informed Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development that it was ready to provide funding for all of Iran’s purchases from Boeing and Airbus.

He stressed that Iran wanted to have an open hand in choosing the best financiers and that a tender to this effect would be held soon.

“Iran Air is preparing the tender documents so that they would be sent to all credible financiers worldwide,” Fakhrieh Kashan told IRNA.

“We are in conditions that permit us to choose our desired financiers in a competitive atmosphere that a tender creates.”

Also, Iran’s media last October quoted an unidentified government official as saying that Boeing had sealed a deal with an American bank to provide financing for Iran’s purchase of airliners in cooperation with a Japanese bank.

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Under the agreement, the airlines will buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX airplanes worth $3 billion. The deal also gives Aseman the right to purchase another 30 of the Boeing’s twinjet narrow-body passenger planes.

IRNA said that representatives of Aseman and Boeing signed the agreement in Tehran covering as many as 60 jets, including options, after a year of negotiations.

Owned by Iran’s civil service pension foundation but managed as a private company, Aseman is Iran’s third largest airline by active fleet size, according to the CAPA consultancy.

Tehran-based Aseman Airlines has a fleet of 36 planes – half of them the 105-seat Dutch Fokker 100s. it operates them on flights to 40 domestic and 13 international destinations, according to its website. However, it was banned from flying into the European Union over safety concerns in December.

Its three Boeing 727-200s are almost as old as the 1979 Islamic Revolution, having made their first flight in 1980.

Boeing described the deal as a “memorandum of agreement,” a type of transaction that falls short of a binding contract and is subject to government approvals.

The Aseman deal still has to be approved by the US government. Boeing said it negotiated the agreement under government authorizations.

If completed, the main part of the deal for 30 jets would be worth $3.4 billion at list prices, though airlines typically win discounts of around 50 percent for large deals.

In the statement on the latest deal, Boeing cited US Department of Commerce data suggesting an “aerospace sale of this magnitude creates or sustains approximately 18,000 jobs in the United States”.

Deliveries to Aseman would start in 2022.

“Boeing continues to follow the lead of the US government with regards to working with Iran’s airlines and any and all contracts with Iran’s airlines are contingent upon US government approval,” Boeing said.

Boeing 737 MAX planes – that would enter service in the second half of 2017 – have a passenger capacity of 130 people and are specifically adequate for domestic and regional flights.

The planes that Aseman Airlines has purchased from Boeing would increase the company’s passenger transportation capacity to above 8,000 seats, Aseman emphasized.

Even before the latest Boeing deal, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said plane purchases would create 20,000 direct jobs, and thousands more indirectly.

“Currently, 500-700 co-pilots are unemployed in Iran,” CAO official Mohammad Reza Kazemipour said on Monday, adding that the new fleets would bring “tens of billions of dollars in revenues for Iran”.

The memorandum of understanding is the second big agreement Boeing has reached with Iranian airlines since sanctions were eased in January 2016 after an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

Boeing is to provide 50 planes of the same type to Iran’s flag-carrier airline Iran Air through a similar agreement. The overall value of Iran Air’s order that also involves 30 long-range wide-body 777 aircraft is estimated to be $16.6 billion.

Iran Air said in December 2016 that Boeing would start to deliver the planes in 2018 and the deliveries would be completed within 10 years.

Iran has already received the first three of a total of 100 Airbus planes that it has purchased from the European company through an agreement worth around $18 billion. More deliveries are expected to take place in the coming months.

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The long-haul aircraft, with Iran Air Chairman Farhad Parvaresh and other officials onboard, took off from the French city of Toulouse on Saturday and landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport five hours and 30 minutes later, IRNA reported.

The A330, which has 32 business class and 206 economy class seats, is suitable for long-distance flights and is expected to be used initially on European routes and on flights to Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.

The jetliner joins a smaller A321, which flew to Tehran on January 11.

“We are working very closely with Airbus, and we are both very keen to stay on schedule and committed to the contract that we made together,” Parvaresh told Reuters on Friday.

Iran had not directly purchased a Western-built plane in nearly 40 years, the one exception being the sale of an Airbus to replace one shot down by the USS Vincennes in 1988.

Iran ordered 100 aircraft from European plane maker Airbus in an 18-billion-dollar deal signed last year, which includes 46 aircraft from the A320 family, 38 from the A330 family, and 16 of the A350 XWB.

In the same year, Iran inked another agreement worth 16.6 billion dollars to buy 80 new planes from US aviation company, Boeing, comprising 50 737 jets and 30 777s.

Iran Air is also expected to finalize an accord to purchase 20 turboprops with European manufacturer ATR, which is jointly owned by Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo Finmeccanica.

The agreements came after the restrictions imposed on Iran’s aviation industry were lifted following a nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The JCPOA was negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 countries – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, plus Germany. It was finalized on July 14, 2015 and started being implemented on January 16, 2016.

Photo: Iran Air’s new Airbus landed in Tehran

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The government encourage had notably Minister of Roads and Urban Planning Abbas Akhundi, Head of AEOI Ali Akbar Salehi, a number of MPs, and other dignitaries from the industry sector, who attended the ceremony to hail the Airbus landing on the airport.

Elaborate ceremony was prepared for the arrival of the much-anticipated Airbus; national anthem was played by a regiment of uniformed staff, with pilots waving hands to the press covering the ceremony.

Head of Iran Air and head of Airbus were onboard Airbus A321 which departed from southern city of Toulouse in France hours ago. The city was hosting a similar ceremony where Iran’s air industry authorities received officially the plane, where Mr. Farhad Parvaresh of Iran Air that the day was the most important day in the history of relations with the Airbus. The first plane houses 190 passengers and is part of the 100 planes signed during Rouhani’s visit to Paris in 2015.

Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier told the press on Wednesday that the company would provide Iran with 98 brand-new planes, with only 2 others coming from a deal with another airline which was cancelled; “the deal is approved by the US Treasury and according to latest international standards of trade,” he told reporters in Toulouse.

He also added that deal with Iran comprises only one-seventh of the total number of orders the company received in 2016.

The deal to renew Iran’s antiquated air fleet will reportedly improve the passenger capacity to 50,000 seats, with 20,000 jobs directly created by the renewal.

The deal allows Iran to own planes after the country completes the repayment process and receive the certificates necessary to repair and maintenance, and other technical services.

Iran will only pay 15 per cent of the total price, with 85 per cent financed by foreign creditors.

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Shahrokh Nushabadi made the announcement adding that the airplane had been scheduled to leave Hamburg Airport of Germany for France’s Toulouse Blagnac Airport on Tuesday after going through technical tests.

“According to the timetable, the Airbus A321 aircraft will be guided by Iranian pilots from Toulouse to Tehran on Thursday before landing in Mehrabad International Airport at 14:30,” he continued.

Spokesperson of Iran Air, the Iranian national flag carrier, recalled that a receiving ceremony will be held in Tehran with a number of military and government officials at attendance.

Following implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and removal of cruel sanctions, Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran managed to sign a contract for purchasing 180 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing and the French company will deliver three aircraft by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (to end March 21).

The Airbus A321 is a member of the Airbus A320 family of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners manufactured by Airbus.

Iran Air has announced that the 190-seat Airbus will be exploited in domestic flight routes after delivery.

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Deputy Minister for International Affairs at the Ministry of Road and Urban Development Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan made the announcement elaborating that “Iran‘s national carrier, Iran Air (Homa) will receive one A330 and two A320 long-range Airbus aircrafts by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (on March 20, 2017).”

Representatives of ATR are slated to visit Tehran on Wednesday, said the official adding “the final round of talks between Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran Air) and a French-Italian aircraft manufacturer will kick off in the coming days and a contract is expected to be inked in the course of talks.”

He recalled that the two sides had previously agreed in purchase of 20 aircraft though Iran is capable of buying 20 more planes from the European manufacturer which is a subsidiary of Airbus.

On financial resources of the aircraft purchase contracts, Fakhrieh Kashan underlined that Iran Air will undertake 15 per cent of the financing while the remaining 85 per cent will be supplied through foreign financing.

Referring to the foreign companies’ interest in striking deals with Iran, he noted that the country has no problems for funding such agreements.

The contract value for buying 20 ATR planes is less than 500 million dollars and the figure for Airbus stands below 10 billion dollars, he stressed.

Also, Iran Air and the American Corporation of Boeing signed an agreement on selling 80 aircraft to Iran on December 11 though the first batch of those passenger aircrafts are expected to be delivered to Iran in early 2018.

Deputy Iranian roads minister, while stressing that the initial contract with Boeing was worth 16.6 billion dollars, given Iran’s proposal and the freedom to choose plane types, the actual value of the deal to buy 80 Boeing aircraft will be worth about 50 percent of the mentioned amount.

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