Iran to receive first Airbus jet by 2016 end

A top Iranian official says the country will receive the first Airbus plane in a major deal that it has signed with the French aviation giant before the end of 2016. (Photo by Airbus)

Iran says it expects to receive the first Airbus plane in a major deal that it has signed with the French aviation giant by the end of 2016. 

Javad Hashemi Tehrani, the managing director of Aviation Parts Holding Company of Iran, told the domestic media that the Airbus which is expected to be delivered to Iran will be the first of 17 planes that the US Treasury Department has allowed to be sold to Iran. 

The plane, Hashemi Tehrani added, will be an A321, adding that the plane is currently in its final test and trial phases.  The narrow-body, mid-range jet will be delivered to Iran’s flag-carrier airline Iran Air, he added. 

The Iranian officials had earlier announced that the country would receive 9 planes from Airbus before the end of the current Persian calendar year (21 March 2017) in case the obstacles for delivering the planes are removed.   

Airbus announced in September that it had received the US Treasury Department’s approval to sell aircraft to Iran. The company – together with its American rival Boeing – had earlier this year sealed deals with Iran to sell some 200 planes to Iran.

The announcement over the expected delivery of an Airbus plane to Iran came as lawmakers in the US are preparing to raise a bill at the chamber which would block the sales of planes to the Islamic Republic. 

The House of Representatives is expected to take up, and pass, the measure as soon as this week. However, it is not expected to get through the Senate, where it would need Democratic support to advance, the report added.

The measure would bar the Secretary of the Treasury from authorizing a transaction by a US financial institution related to the export, or re-export, of commercial aircraft to Iran. And it would revoke any authorities enacted before the bill passed, such as those that allowed the Boeing and Airbus sales, it noted.

It would also limit the role of Export-Import Bank financing of sales to Iran.

On Tuesday, The US administration announced that President Barack Obama is set to veto an upcoming legislation to block sales of passenger planes to Iran on the grounds that it would breach a landmark nuclear agreement sealed with the country last year. 

Reuters has in a report quoted the White House as announcing that US partners view the legislation, if implemented, as a violation of the nuclear agreement.