Iran disappointed airline giants end ties under US sanctions
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iranian Ambassador to the UK on Thursday expressed regrets at the announcement of major European airlines halting flights to Iran as part of the US sanctions on Tehran.
In statements released on Thursday, both Air France and British Airways said their routes to Iran were “not commercially viable,” and revealed they were suspending all flights starting Sep. 18 and 22 respectively.
“British Airways announced today that due to commercial reasons, they would discontinue flights to Tehran near the end of September,” Hamid Baeidinejad, Ambassador of Iran to the UK, said in a post on social media.
بریتیش ایرویز امروز اعلام کرد که بدلایل تجاری از اواخر سپتامبر پروازهای خود را به تهران ادامه نخواهد داد. این تصمیم با توجه به تقاضای مسافرین این خط مستقیم مایه تاسف است. امیدواریم ایران ایر با داشتن سه پرواز هفتگی مستقیم به لندن بتواند با استفاده از فرصت، جای خالی را پر نماید.
— Hamid Baeidinejad (@baeidinejad) August 23, 2018
Baeidinejad continued that the decision was unfortunate, keeping in mind the demands of passengers that use the direct line of travel.
“I hope Iran Air, with three direct flights a week between London and Tehran, can take advantage of the situation and fill the vacancy,” he concluded.
British Airways only resumed services to Tehran in 2016 after a four-year halt as the international nuclear deal with Iran eased some sanctions on the country. Air France had already reduced the frequency of its flights from three to one a week since the beginning of this month.
Pressure on Tehran has been mounting, notably as US National Security Adviser John Bolton was in the region this week discussing Iran’s “malign influence and meddling” in the Middle East.
On Monday, after a statement by Iran’s Ministry of Oil, French energy giant Total confirmed they were leaving Iran in response to the US sanctions that were re-imposed after Washington withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal that sought to curb Tehran’s military ambitions.
“Total has officially left the contract to develop the South Pars Gas project’s phase 11,” Iran’s Minister of Oil, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, told state-owned ICANA, claiming that “the process to replace it with another company is underway.”
Editing by Nadia Riva