Mahan Air

Tehran Imam Khomeini

Mahan Air ( Persian: هواپیمایی ماهان ) is the largest private Iranian airline based in Tehran and hub at Imam Khomeini International Airport.

History

Founding and first years

Mahan Air was founded in 1991 by the son of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Alī in Kerman - founded - the capital of the same name, Iranian province. The company's headquarters was later moved to Tehran. Patron saint of the city is located in the southeast of the country Mahan in Kerman province.

In 1992, Mahan Air flight operations with two Tupolev Tu- 154M on national routes. Soon after was driven abroad with Damascus for the first goal. From 1994, Mahan Air offered in addition to cargo flights with two Ilyushin Il- 76TD.

In 1997 the company, which had grown in the few years of its existence, the second-largest airline behind the government of Iran Air, in an economic imbalance that could be corrected, however, by comprehensive action on their own. Came Mahan Air offers today 13% of all international connections to Iran and has a market share of 8% in domestic sales.

As of 1999, the fleet was supplemented by Western aircraft types. Because of the trade embargo against Iran but no aircraft could be purchased directly from Airbus or Boeing, but had to be purchased that do not support at this time the trade embargo on the used market from countries. So used Airbus A300 and A310 models of the types were obtained successively.

Development since 2000

Since 2001, Mahan Air is a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA ).

As of 2002, six Airbus A310 -300 should be taken over by Turkish Airlines. However, only two aircraft were handed over to Mahan Air. With these aircraft, it was Mahan Air possible to include international connections to other destinations. Thus, besides Bangkok, Delhi and Jeddah also Dusseldorf and later Birmingham and Manchester were included in the flight plan from the spring of 2002. Other national and international goals followed. As early as 2003 went Mahan Air with the Düsseldorf LTU cooperation and offered its passengers from Dusseldorf connecting flights to selected destinations in the North American rail network of LTU. This cooperation has now ended because LTU as an independent company no longer exists after the takeover by Air Berlin.

After the opening of the newly built Imam Khomeini International Airport in May 2004, Mahan Air shifted the majority of flight operations at about 30 kilometers southwest of Tehran airport and tried by an attractive price-performance ratio, these too as a hub between its European and Asian destinations establish. The licensed according to international standards maintenance base, which is maintained among others by the state Iran Air and Sogerma field remains at the old Mehrabad International Airport until its closure.

In the same year, an Airbus were in wetlease first ever taken A320 - 200 and A321 -200 Düsseldorf Bluewings under contract that should replace the Russian Tupolev. Up to eight copies of the A320 family should be procured, but could by 2007 only two A320 -200 Blue Wings are eingeflottet - an additional copy is operated in the leasing of the Armenian Blue Sky, which also operates other aircraft of other patterns for Mahan Air.

In July 2007, the British aviation authorities Mahan Air occupied by a landing ban on all airfields in the UK. It has been criticized, inter alia, the lack of statutory Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS ) and Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System ( EGPWS ). In September of the same year, the European Commission followed the reasoning of the British authorities and Mahan Air finally took to the list of operating bans for the airspace of the European Union. In the routine, semi- annual review of this list, the European Commission Mahan Air provided a repeal of the test flight ban in view as one is on the way to completely eliminate the identified deficiencies. This was done on 24 July 2008.

In 2011, the U.S. has the Iranian airline Mahan Air put on a "black list ". This means that all assets of the airline in the United States would be frozen, U.S. citizens are prohibited business with the company. Background should be the alleged planned attack on Iran by the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S.. According to the U.S. Treasury Mahan Air support those units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which should be behind the alleged assassination plots.

Destinations

Mahan Air operates numerous targets inside Iran and cities in the Middle East such as Dammam, Baghdad, Dubai, Kuwait and Damascus, as well as internationally Almaty, Shanghai, Bangkok, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur and Delhi. In Europe, Dusseldorf and Istanbul are served currently.

Fleet

As of July 2013, the fleet of 51 aircraft consists of Mahan Air with a mean age of 23.7 years:

Because of the trade sanctions against Iran Mahan Air is not possible to relate western aircraft production directly from the manufacturer. Mahan Air, therefore, relates their aircraft on the used and leasing market. Last Mahan Air acquired through an intermediary, the former government aircraft the flight readiness of the Ministry of Defense of Airbus A310 -300 with the name " Theodor Heuss ", which was flown for the last time for the German Federal Government in June 2010.

Incidents

Mahan Air recorded in its history so far no accidents with fatalities. However, due to interim fixes security flaws, they stood from September 2007 to July 2008 on the list of operating bans for the airspace of the European Union.