Iran's National Aviation Organization (NAO) has purchased six Airbus 310-200 from Turkey, a report said Sunday, July 29. The purchase was approved by the country's high economic council and will be paid in installments until 2009, the Hamshahri business daily reported. It did not give either the date of the deal, or the purchase price.
Two of the Airbus planes, manufactured in 1985 and 1986, are already in service in Iran, while the four others will join the country's fleet by the end of September, it added.
The fleet of national Iran Air comprises some 30 aircraft, most of them built by US company Boeing before Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many of them are in need of renovations while the country's demand for flights has increased.
The US sanctions imposed on Iran, especially in high-tech goods, and "with the financial impossibility of buying new planes," according to the economic council, means it is constrained to upgrading its fleet by buying used planes. ― (AFP, Tehran)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
