Despite sanctions , Iran managed to get four Airbus A340 aircraft , those are being traced back to Turkish Airlines , as an answer to its increasing travel demand and Aging planes.
The widebody, four-engine aircraft, manufactured between 1996 and 2000, those flew more than two decades for Turkish Airlines, untill 2018 and 2019, after which Turkish Airlines phased them out.
Now, the Iranian aviation authorities have confirmed the purchase of four Airbus A340, long-range four-engine, lrg-body airliners.
Local media quoted Hassan Khoshkho, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran (CAO), as saying that the Airbus A340 "made in France" arrived in the country "in recent days".
Gerjon traced out the Four Airbus A340 Aircraft at Mehrabad International Airport.
The announcement came just days after news broke that four A340-300 aircraft took off from Johannesburg International Airport in South Africa and landed in the Iranian capital.
Learned to be a hush-hush move, as per the original flight plan Uzbekistan was their destination, but they made it to Tehran. In a deviation to the flight plan, after crossing from Omani to Iranian airspace, all four planes changed direction and continued on to Tehran.
For sometime now , U.S. sanctions have prevented Iranian airlines, including the country's major airlines Iran Air and Mahan Airlines, from buying Airbus aircraft to strengthen their aging fleet.
Aviation observers believe the four Airbus 340s may have been imported through clandestine transactions by local Iranian airlines to circumvent sanctions.
Due to the sanctions on spare parts and new aircraft procurement , major Iranian airlines, including Iran Air, Mahan Airlines and Kish Air, have curtailed their international flights in recent years.
Iranian Mahan Air operates several former Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic A340s that were acquired as second-hand during the short period when sanctions were temporarily eased.
The aircraft currently operated by other major Iranian carriers were also bought from Airbus more than five years ago, before the former US administration led by Donald Trump reinstated sanctions that had been eased under the 2015 nuclear deal by its predecessor.
About these four aircraft , on December 23, four Airbus 340-300 under long term storage in Johannesburg took off from the South African airport , and flew for many hours on different airspace until entering the Iranian one, after a while the ADSB traces disappeared.
Iran and Russia have been exploring opportunities to Bypass the sanctions in the Field of Civil Aviation.
Previously , after being phased out from Turkish Airlines , the four aircraft had arrived on South African soil in 2019 , followed by a registry change under the Guernsey register on behalf of a Hong Kong-based company , called AVRO Global Limited at first and then under Burkina Faso.
The four aircraft, those departed Johannesburg at almost the same time with Burkino Faso registrations were XT-AKA, XT-AKB, XT-AKK and XT-ALM , with a history of operating for Turkish Airlines as TC-JDM , TC-JDN , TC-JIH and TC-JII.
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