Resumption of International Flights from Imam Khomeini Airport

Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport has announced that, starting Saturday, April 25, flights to Istanbul, Turkey, and Muscat, Oman, will operate from the airport.

According to the report, these flights are scheduled to be carried out by Iran Air, Mahan Air, Iran Airtour, and Sepehran Airlines. It has been stated that permits for further flights have also been issued, with updates regarding these to be provided in the coming days.

All flights from Iranian airports were suspended following the start of the war on February 28 last year. On April 18, Imam Khomeini and Mehrabad airports in Tehran, as well as airports in Mashhad, Birjand, Gorgan, and Zahedan, were reopened.

Since the beginning of the war on February 28 and the subsequent U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, the country’s airspace had been completely closed. Throughout the conflict, Israel and the U.S. also targeted a number of airports in various Iranian cities. During the 40-day war, seven major airports in the country were struck by U.S. and Israeli aircraft; in these attacks, passenger planes sustained more damage than military aircraft.

Based on estimates and a report published in The Wall Street Journal, airports including Tehran’s Mehrabad, Tabriz, Ahvaz, Kashan, Urmia, Khorramabad, and Kerman, as well as the Bahram and Azmayesh airfields in Tehran, were repeatedly targeted by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes during the Ramadan war. In addition to damage to infrastructure such as runways, air traffic control towers, and hangars, dozens of Iranian passenger aircraft used for tourism and travel were destroyed or removed from service due to shrapnel damage and collateral destruction.

Mahan Air, Iran Air, and Zagros Airlines have “suffered the most damage from the destruction of passenger aircraft.”