Page 48 - IRANRptNov19

transported via Iranian airports during the fourth calendar month, registering 6% and 4% contractions year on year, respectively.
Domestic flights accounted for 27,928 of the recorded take-offs and landings. That figure was also down 5% y/y. Also, the number of domestic passengers, at 3.2mn, fell 6% y/y, while the figure of 23,158 tonnes of domestic cargo was down 5% y/y.
International flights followed a similar path, with some 6,137 flights in and out of Iran showing another 5% y/y drop. They transported 997,053 passengers and more than 19,200 tonnes of cargo. Those figures were lower by 5% y/y and 2% y/y.
The data showed Tehran’s older Mehrabad Airport remained the busiest airport in the country. It handled 1.19mn of the domestic flights. Meanwhile, Mashhad International, in the northwest of the country, recorded some 900,979 passengers during the one-month period. Imam Khomeini International Airport, or IKIA, Tehran’s main international departure and arrival point, saw the biggest passenger decrease, at 10% y/y, with 669,296 people using the airport.
In a first for Iranian aviation, a female captain and female first officer piloted a round trip Tehran—Mashhad flight on October 14, making them the first women to have piloted a passenger flight in Iran without the assistance of male colleagues.
The past few years have seen Iran relaxing its rules on women taking top roles in its aviation industry. A woman, ​Farzaneh Sharafabadi​, ​served as the CEO of flagship IranAir for more than 12 months between 2017 and 2018.
Captain Neshat Jahandari and her first officer Forouz Firouzi flew 160 passengers on the flight from Tehran to the northeastern city of Mashhad, and then returned with 171 passengers to the Iranian capital.
Prior to this all-female flight, Jahandari was in the news for being the first co-pilot to fly in Iran with her husband as captain.
Women in Iran started learning to fly planes as far back as 1940. The first woman in Iran to receive a pilot's licence was Princess Fatemeh Pahlavi, the first Pahlavi king’s tenth child.
Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic created under the guidance of Shi’ite Islamic jurists and clerics, women’s rights in Iran were heavily scaled back. That included curbs on their right to fly planes.
However, in recent years the rules have been relaxed, allowing women to take roles in aviation closed off to them for the past 30 years.
9.1.4​ Transport sector news
Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation (PMO) has announced a plan to sell off minor, unprofitable ports to private companies, ILNA reported on September 11.
The Iranian government has invested heavily in several major Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf ports in recent years, but due to a lack of capital smaller ports missed out on the investment bonanza.
According to a memo released by the PMO on September 10, the ports would be sold off to private companies over the next few months following an assessment of their potential value.
Mohammad-Ali Hassanzadeh, the PMO deputy for ports and economic affairs, was quoted as saying: “We have 48 small ports in the country, most of them located at southern sea coastlines. We have finished the comprehensive plan
48​ IRAN Country Report​ November 2019 www.intellinews.com