The Headache of Air Travel in Iran

Behrouz Mina looks at an industry crippled by international sanctions — and its impact on ordinary travelers.

In February, I packed my backpack and booked a ticket with Mahan Airlines on its afternoon flight to Mashhad out of Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport. Ghazaleh, the saleswoman at a travel agency in west Tehran, assured me all would be fine:  “Mahan is a trusted company, you will get there”.

Arriving at the airport two hours ahead of the flight, I received a text message from the airline: “Your flight is canceled due to technical issues”. I looked around to find an angry crowd gathered around the Mahan Airlines desk. An agent was trying to explain. “The airplane’s engine is malfunctioning, it is not safe”. Someone in the crowd shouted, “This is not an answer.” The angry passengers showed no signs of leaving the airport.

For the past 34 years, Iranian airlines, both public and private, have struggled. They have not been able to acquire the parts they need to maintain their fleets and keep them operational. “Airplanes always need parts, but we have no way of getting them through reliable channels,” says 65-year-old Qasim, an old hand when it comes to aircraft maintenance in Iran. Airplanes are expensive to maintain, and need to be checked and serviced at regular, fixed intervals. Severely restricted by internationally imposed sanctions, Iran’s airlines simply cannot cope. Currently, there are 108 airplanes grounded in Iran due to lack of parts. Qasim is frustrated. “The engines need repairing, but no one accepts engines from Iran. Even if they do, it is not certain they will return them”.

When it comes to maintenance. Iran’s aging airplanes have a very small margin of error. So the Iran Civil Aviation Organization (IR-CAO) often grounds them in order to ensure flight safety. But this, of course, means less operational capacity.

In Tehran, I experienced this firsthand. The angry voices around me were getting louder all the time.

“The airplane can’t go, it is not safe, it will get you all killed!”

“People are not your slaves! They have lives, work and family.”

“I have an ill family member. I have to be in Mashhad tonight.”

Someone muttered something mean and nasty. The airline workers withdrew behind a glass door. They began to make phone calls. Passengers were not leaving; it was going to be a long day. 

Hours passed. Other flights were fully booked. Or airlines that did have spare seats refused to accept Mahan Airlines tickets. A man in his mid-thirties with an air of authority arrived. He approached the counter. When people began to ask questions, he answered, “Don’t make a fuss; I have left my wife and kid to come here to help you.” He grabbed his colleague’s cellphone. He said he would find an airplane for us.

Amir, a 32-year-old first officer, has been flying Boeing and Airbus aircrafts for a number of private Iranian airlines for the past seven years. “All airlines have backup planes,” he said, in situations where airplanes have been grounded for whatever reason. “But most of the time, the reserve plane is itself grounded and in need of repairs”.

Technical incidents are so frequent that, in many cases, backup airplanes have already been used by noon each day. Because of sanctions, Iranian airlines have a larger number of grounded aircraft than is standard in other countries, and they need to cope with more incidents of technical malfunctions. But even so, IR-CAO has not increased the necessary number of backup airplanes. From Amir’s perspective, Iran’s airline industry needs “more backup airplanes than a similar airline abroad”.

“No one takes responsibility”

The situation is excruciating for many Iranian air travelers —particularly when an Iranian airplane breaks down in Istanbul or Dubai. Many cannot afford hotels and if they can, there are rarely enough available hotel rooms to accommodate them. Occasionally passengers have to sleep in airport waiting lounges for replacement planes to arrive. Iranian media reports occasions where Iranian passengers waited for 60 hours to return to Tehran. Iranian airliners are not a member of any international alliance of airlines so they cannot call upon other airlines to help them automatically. For Saeed, 36 years old engineer trapped at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul the experience was humiliating “among all new airplanes there we were waiting for an old airplane to arrive from Tehran, it was embarrassing”. 

Mr. Husseini is a 54-year-old boutique owner from Mashhad. He has stores in Tehran and Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. For him, traveling is a business necessity. “No one takes responsibility — not government officials or airline companies. People are treated as if they are sheep or cattle”. One out of every three flights I take is delayed or canceled”. In November, one of his flights was delayed for seven hours. When they arrived at his destination Mr. Husseini and other passengers refused to disembark. They demanded the airline compensate them for lack of service. The airline’s office issued them with free tickets, but refused to reimburse them — it did not have the cash to do so.

Iranian airlines continue to lose substantial amounts of money. It is estimated that Iranian airline companies owe a total of US$1.2 billion to the Iran Airport Holding Company. Mehdi, a financial expert working with a private airline, told me: “Everybody sends us a bill, from the Revolutionary Guards [for security and for airport and runway operations] to the municipalities [for local tax]”. In order to manage limited financial resources, airlines often delay payments to these authorities, and try to make a profit where they can. The government tolerates this conduct since it is well aware of the cost of sanctions. Though no government officials will admit it, it is obvious that sanctions have hit the industry badly. “If an airline cancels a flight because of financial reasons or wants to end its operations, the issue will always be described as one of national security,” Mehdi says.

In the past, the government has tried to lessen the burden by providing hard currency at preferred official exchange rates and offering low interest rate bank loans. But many in the industry preferred to exchange rials for much-desired US dollars at the government's official rate —typically one-third or two-thirds less — and sell that currency on to black market. One company went as far as leasing an aircraft for a month. It received $1million in government funds and then canceled  operations due to technical issues. According to Mehdi, the company made close to 20 billion rials ($700,000) in profit selling the allocated foreign currency in the black market. In this chaotic market, everyone is working toward his own end and for his own benefit. As a result, airline travelers are often ignored and usually mistreated. But as these events illustrate, passengers are not willing to put up with it any more.

Back in the airport, the airline manager finally came out and told the crowd that an airplane had been found. It would arrive in an hour and take us to Mashhad. We had waited seven hours. As we were lining up to get our new boarding passes, I saw another group of passengers gathering at another desk — this time the desk of a private airline that flew to Kish Airlines. The flight was delayed. The airline staff were busy distributing boxes of juice and pieces of cake to calm down the crowd. The saga of air travel in Iran continues