France bans flights operated by Iran's second-largest airline
Iran's second-largest airline, Mahan Air, has to stop flights to Paris for what has been reported as sanctions imposed by the French government.
"Mahan Air will have to halt its Paris flights as of April 1. They notified me in an email," tweeted an Iranian passenger who had booked a flight to the French capital. Airline officials have confirmed the cancellations, saying French government sanctions forced the ban. Mahan is Iran's second-largest carrier with its Paris schedule covering four flights on a weekly basis.
The airline has already suffered similar bans, including one imposed by Germany in January. German officials cited security reasons amid allegations about Iran's involvement in assassination plots on European soil, an accusation Tehran has vehemently denied. Earlier in March, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi expressed his country's dissatisfaction with the decision, stressing "the necessity for a reconsideration." But the ban still remains in place.
After Iran and major world powers inked the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, hopes were reinvigorated that the lifting of sanctions will herald better days for Iran's crumbling aviation industry affected by decades-long punitive measures. As the accord began to be implemented, Iran restlessly pushed to cover the lagging sector, signing multibillion-dollar purchase deals with Boeing, Airbus and ATR. But reinstated sanctions following the US departure from the pact in May 2018 promoted cancellations. No Boeing aircraft was delivered while Airbus and ATR offered only three and 13 planes, respectively.
The reinstated sanctions have also brought about peculiar situations. Earlier this year, a Norwegian Air Shuttle had to make an emergency landing at an airport in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz en route from Dubai to Oslo. But not everything went as smoothly as expected. The plane remained stranded for nearly 70 days because delivering a replacement engine to Iran would have been a violation of US sanctions that prohibited any export of plane parts to the country. Iranian authorities and social media users cited the case as a clear example of how US sanctions could well go beyond the scope of ordinary Iranian citizens.
