A Sunday report by the official IRNA news agency said that Iran Air will restore flights to destinations in Malaysia, Thailand, and China from August and September, saying they will replace flights to major cities in Europe and Britain that stopped late last year because of EU and British sanctions.
The report said Iran Air will rely on an expanded fleet of jets, including two wide-body planes it bought recently and three jets that have become airworthy again thanks to a home-grown repair program.
It said the airline currently has 17 operational jets with more than 3,000 active passenger seats, as well as one cargo plane.
Iran Air cancelled all of its flights to European destinations on October 15, a day after the EU announced sanctions against the airline and two domestic peers, claiming they had been involved in Iran’s alleged supply of drones and missiles to Russia.
The cancellation of flights to Europe has been compensated by increased activity of other Iranian airlines on European routes, as well as a rise in the number of flights by Iran Air to regional airports to facilitate connection flights to Europe.
That comes as the airline has also been subject to a series of American sanctions that restrict its access to aviation parts and repair services.
However, Iran Air has expanded its route network in recent years by increasingly relying on domestic suppliers.
The IRNA report said that the national airline had carried out more than 10,000 flights between August and March, transferring more than 1.23 million passengers and 4,500 metric tons of cargo between its domestic and international destinations.
Press TV