TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Iran may offer discounts to lure airlines to fly through its airspace
Change Size
An Iranian woman wearing a face mask is pictured in the capital Tehran on June 16, 2020 amid the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic crisis. (AFP/Atta Kenare)
I
ran is drawing up plans to offer discounts to some foreign airlines using its airspace, state news agency IRNA quoted a senior aviation official as saying on Saturday, after a slump in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic and regional tensions.
Nasser Aghaei, director of the state-run Iran Airports and Air Navigation Company, said the discounts would go to the top eight airlines providing transit income as well as airlines boosting their flights by 20 percent.
However, no general cut in fees are planned, IRNA said. Iran is one of many countries to charge so-called overflight fees, which are generally used to fund services such as air traffic control, weather data and aeronautical information.
The planned discounts still have to be approved by the government, Aghaei said.
Before the pandemic, major airlines in January rerouted or cancelled flights to avoid airspace over Iraq and Iran following an Iranian missile strike on US-led forces in Iraq.
On Jan 8, all 176 people aboard a Ukrainian airliner flight were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Tehran to Kiev.
Iran acknowledged shooting the plane down but said it had done so by mistake while under high alert, hours after it had fired at US targets in retaliation for a US strike that killed an Iranian general.
In June, some global airlines re-routed flights to avoid Iran-controlled airspace over parts of the Gulf, after the US aviation regulator barred its carriers from the area following the downing of a US drone by Iran.
