Iran says Boeing team coming to Tehran

The country’s flag-carrier airline Iran Air has announced in a statement that it will host Boeing for its upcoming trade talks in Tehran.

A main topic in the agenda of discussions will be supporting the current Iran Air fleet, the airline said.

Several other Iranian airlines will also hold talks with the aviation giant, it added without providing an exact timetable on its arrival and the planned talks.

Ali Abedzadeh, the president of Iran Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), said last month that talks between Iran Air and Boeing over the purchase of new planes are continuing, stressing that a deal with the American aviation giant is “very likely” to be sealed.

Abedzadeh added that several other domestic aviation companies are also engaged in talks with Boeing to purchase planes.

The media in late January quoted a top Iranian official in a report as saying that the country plans to purchase over 100 planes from Boeing.

The same report said that Iran’s order list from the American aviation giant included narrow-body 737s for domestic flights and two-aisle 777s for long-haul routes.

In January, Iran signed a major deal worth over $27 billion for the purchase of 118 planes from Airbus.  The deal – which is yet to be finalized – was signed during a landmark trip to Paris by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.

Iran’s Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi said in January that Airbus’s first deliveries to flag carrier Iran Air are due as early as July.

Iranian officials have already emphasized that the country will need to buy 500 commercial jets of various models for various short-, medium- and long-distance routes.

According to Minister Akhoundi, Iran’s current civil aviation fleet consists of 248 aircraft with an average age of 20 years, of which 100 are in storage.