Bessent: All Iranian Airlines Shut Down Worldwide From September 23

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that all Iranian airlines will be effectively shut down around the world starting September 23, warning every airport, fuel supplier, ground handler, and ticket seller globally that any service provided to Iranian aircraft will result in immediate exclusion from the US dollar system.

"On September 23, all Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world,"

Bessent said.

 "How do we do that? If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets, or you will be knocked out of the dollar system."

The announcement represents the most sweeping single aviation sanctions action of Operation Economic Outcast and one of the most comprehensive extraterritorial enforcement measures the United States has ever applied to a single country's commercial aviation sector. By threatening dollar system exclusion for any entity anywhere in the world that provides fuel, ground handling, or ticketing services to Iranian aircraft, Bessent is effectively making Iranian airlines unlandable at any airport whose operators, fuel suppliers, or ticketing systems touch the US dollar, which encompasses virtually every major commercial aviation hub on the planet.

The timing of the announcement is precise and deliberate. It lands on the same day that Iranian President Pezeshkian departed Tehran for New York to attend the UN General Assembly, vowing to firmly defend Iran's positions in international forums, and that Foreign Minister Araghchi arrived in New York leading Iran's diplomatic delegation. The shutdown of all Iranian airlines from September 23 will affect Iran's ability to conduct commercial air travel domestically and internationally, its capacity to move personnel and cargo, and its people's access to the outside world at a moment when their president is attempting to use the UN platform to argue Iran's case to the international community.

Iranian airlines have been under various layers of US sanctions for years, but the previous sanctions regime primarily targeted American entities from doing business with Iranian carriers. Bessent's September 23 announcement goes significantly further by applying secondary sanctions pressure to every non-American entity in the global aviation supply chain, from European fuel companies to Asian ground handlers to African ticketing agents, threatening all of them with dollar system exclusion if they continue servicing Iranian aircraft after Tuesday.

The dollar system exclusion threat is the most powerful tool in Bessent's enforcement arsenal. Access to US dollar clearing is the foundation of international commercial aviation, with virtually all jet fuel contracts, aircraft maintenance agreements, airport service contracts, and airline ticketing systems globally priced in or settled through US dollars. An entity knocked out of the dollar system cannot effectively operate in international commerce, making the threat functionally equivalent to a global commercial death sentence for any business that defies it.

The aviation shutdown announcement extends Operation Economic Outcast's enforcement reach into a domain that Bessent had previously identified as a target but not yet acted on at this scale. The campaign has already sanctioned UAE-based Banque Misr, Turkish Golden Global Bank, a Hong Kong front company, VTB Bank in Russia, and a Chinese cryptocurrency network used to launder $1.5 billion in Iranian oil revenues. The September 23 aviation shutdown is the largest single-sector enforcement action the campaign has produced.