Iran plans to launch a 100-seat commercial aircraft, said Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh, general director of the Civil Aviation Organization. “We are working on launching the production line of a 100-passenger passenger plane,” said Zanganeh last week, but without elaborating on what type of aircraft this would be.
The director also announced that HESA (Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company) will produce a cargo variant of the IrAn-140 turboprop, Antonov’s aircraft made under license under the An-140 model.
“We are expanding the aircraft manufacturing program in the country, according to which IrAn-140 plane will be used as a cargo aircraft. It will be used in military units,” said Touraj Dehghani Zanganeh.
Boycott of new planes
Following a resumption of orders for new commercial aircraft, Iran was banned from receiving models produced in the West during the Trump administration in the U.S. Because of the supply of several vital components for most of the planes produced today, a boycott ends up preventing virtually any agreement.
Some Iranian companies even received the ATR turboprop, but part of the deliveries have been suspended. Because of this, Iranian aviation uses very old and inefficient aircraft such as the A300, Fokker 100 and 727, among others.
Recently, representatives of the Iranian government have stated an interest in acquiring Embraer aircraft in significant quantities, but there has been no known progress on these initiatives.
