Page 45 - IRANRptDec19

Iran’s airport traffic falls 5% y/y in fourth Persian calendar
stated.
Iran’s airports saw some 34,065 take-offs and landings during the fourth 2019/2020 Persian month (June 22- July 22), marking a 5% y/y decline, Tehran’s ​Financial Tribune h​ as reported.
Iranian travellers, both domestic and international, have felt the pinch in the past year with flight prices increasing because of the severe weakening of the Iranian rial (IRR) sparked by US sanctions.
A total of 4.19mn passengers and 42,300 tonnes of cargo were reportedly 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.
9.1.4​ Transport sector news
Countries participating in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) met in Baku to discuss implementation of the multi-mode project linking trade routes between the west coast of India and northern Europe, Trend.AZ reported on November 29.
Azerbaijan Railways chairman Javid Gurbanov held talks with the delegation heads of the Russian, Belarusian, Iranian and Indian national railway companies who visited the Azerbaijani capital to attend the fourth meeting of the INSTC working group. The full extent of the 7,200-kilometre corridor, running via Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, will be very much dependent on rail
45​ IRAN Country Report​ December 2019 www.intellinews.com