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officials lately touted as entirely locally made, with no parts sourced from France’s PSA Group since its official departure from Iran in the face of US sanctions directed at Tehran and any companies across swathes of industry that continue doing business with Iran. Initially, the 301 was destined to become an everyman vehicle of choice, but production remained stunted after the US declared what Iran calls its “economic war”.
IKCO has expanded its regional reach in recent years with joint venture deals with companies in countries including Iraq, Syria and Azerbaijan.
Cars produced by IKCO’s joint venture with Azerbaijan’s AzerMash—under the Khazar brand—are to be sold in Russia i f all goes to plan. Khazar’s plant is in the Naftchala department of Azerbaijan, 168 kilometres south of Baku.
In Azerbaijan, in the basic configuration, a Dena sedan costs Azerbaijani manat (AZN) 16,000 ($9,411).
9.2.3 Aviation corporate news
Qatar Airways and IranAir have expanded their inter-line partnership. Eight more Iranian provincial cities have been brought into the Persian Gulf carriers’ network, Aviation Iran reported on November 25.
The two airlines substantially broadened their cooperation in August this year, announcing up to 16 new destinations for the network. IranAir continues to suffer from the application of US sanctions that target its ability to provide both domestic and international services. Relying on Qatar Airways to carry some of the load is therefore a useful option. The backdrop to the cooperation has seen Iran and Turkey emerge as allies to Qatar since in June 2017 Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia mounted an economic blockade of the small nation in a row over Doha’s alleged support for terrorist militia in the Middle East and closeness to Tehran. The blockade is ongoing. Iran and Turkey have provided Qatar Airways with alternative flight paths to help the Qataris get around it.
The variously sized Iranian cities are now listed on Qatar Airways’ website and show connecting flights to cities abroad including Bangkok.
IranAir has struggled to overhaul and keep its ageing fleet operational since the reimposition of US sanctions on the country last year.
IranAir in 2016 signed an agreement with Airbus for the supply of 118 aircraft. It asked for 73 wide-body aircraft and 45 narrow-body planes. The contract included 21 jets of the A320ceo family and 24 of the A320neo family. Also, Airbus received an order for 12 of its largest airliner, the A380, from IranAir. However, the airline has to date only received a handful of Airbus jets which arrived before the sanctions block was erected.
At the start of this year, available data showed IranAir’s fleet featured two A310s, 12 A300s, four Boeing 747s, six A320s and 16 Fokker 100s. Some of the jets are over 40 years-old and are only in partial operation due to sanctions restricting routes.
Iran appointed a former airforce commander who is on a Washington blacklist as the new chief executive of IranAir on May 6.
Turaj Dehghani Zanganeh replaced Farzaneh Sharafbafi, the first Iranian woman with a PhD in aerospace and the first woman to run the airline. She was at the helm of the airline for two years.
Given the depreciation of the rial by some 60% in the past year, Iranian travellers have opted for more cost-efficient ways to travel abroad, including by rail.
59 IRAN Country Report December 2019 www.intellinews.com
