Deputy Transport Minister for International Affairs, Asghar Fakhrieh, told MNA correspondent that two deals have been struck with Europe's Airbus, one of which is a comprehensive cooperation with Airbus in the aviation sector on various issues such as maintenance, service and spare parts supply, management and even help with the country’s technical air condition.
Fakhrieh added that Airbus plans to cooperate with Iranian knowledge-based companies which are capable of building certain aircraft parts and can export these parts abroad.
“Airbus can even give certificates so that these companies could export their products. It has even been decided that the French company would purchase some of the Iranian-built parts,” he said.
Noting that Iran has plans for buying a total of 118 Airbus aircraft from the French company, he added “the aircraft will gradually enter Iran by 2023, while to meet our needs, a number of these jet airliners in various classes will enter the country within the next seven years.”
According to Fakhrieh, the majority of the aircraft are of A320 and A321 models that will be used for domestic flights as well as for flights destined to neighboring countries.
“Another class to enter the country are the wide-body, long-range aircraft that will fly to countries such as China and Japan and even Canada and the US if agreed,” he said.
The deputy minister added that the third class are highly modern aircraft including A-350 and A-380 superjumbo planes which will be delivered to Iran much later by 2019, 2020 and 2021, since special landing site, services and maintenance and repair shops must first be provided for this class of aircraft.
He went on to add that at least one Airbus 330 will enter Iran by mid-February, saying “by 2017, 15 Airbus aircraft will be most probably delivered to Iran, although the actual worth of the whole contracts have not been decided yet.”
Fakhrieh then referred to the contract with France’s Boeing saying “under the agreement, Boeing in collaboration with Iran Airport City Company will establish a company with 60 percent of its shares belonging to Iran. On the condition that the French side bring 100 percent investment into the company, Imam Khomeini Airport development project will get underway.”
He added that after the construction, the airport will be operated on the BOT (build-operate-transfer) system, but the airport will be run jointly with the Iranian side.
The deputy minister finally touched upon the fourth contract on developing Mashhad and Isfahan airports, saying “the contract has been signed with VINCI Construction France under which the two sides must carry out the engineering operations within three months and the project will be implemented by Iranian contractors.”
Fakhrieh also referred to contracts with the Italian companies, saying a delegation is slated to visit Iran next week to ink the new agreements.
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