Mahan Air

Mahan Air هواپیمایی ماهان
IATA code :	W5
ICAO code :	IRM
Call sign :	MAHAN AIR
Founding:	1991
Seat:	Tehran , Iran
Turnstile :	Tehran Imam Khomeini Tehran-Mehrabad
Home airport :	Tehran-Mehrabad
IATA prefix code :	537
Management:	Hamid Arabnejad
Number of employees:	circa 1600
Frequent Flyer Program :	Mahan & Miles
Fleet size:	40 (+ 2 orders)
Aims:	National and international
Website:	www.mahan.aero

Mahan Air ( Persian هواپیمایی ماهان) is the largest private Iranian airline based in Tehran and based at Tehran-Mehrabad Airport .

history

Foundation and first years

Tupolev Tu-154M of Mahan Air in 1999

Mahan Air was founded in 1991 by the son of the then Iranian President Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni in Kerman - capital of the Iranian province of the same name. However, the company's headquarters were later relocated to Tehran. The namesake is the city of Mahan in the south-east of the country in the province of Kerman .

In 1992 Mahan Air began flight operations with two Tupolev Tu-154M on national routes. Soon afterwards, Damascus was the first destination abroad. From 1994 Mahan Air also offered cargo flights with two Ilyushin Il-76TDs .

In 1997 the company, which in the few years of its existence had grown into the second largest airline behind the state-owned Iran Air , got into economic difficulties, which, however, could be corrected through extensive measures on its own. Mahan Air today offers 13% of all international connections to Iran and has a market share of 8% in domestic business.

From 1999 the fleet was supplemented by western aircraft types. Due to the trade embargo against Iran, however, aircraft could not be purchased directly from Airbus or Boeing , but had to be procured on the used market from countries that did not support the trade embargo at the time. Used Airbus A300 and A310 were gradually acquired.

Development since 2000

Mahan Air has been a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) since 2001 .

From 2002, six Airbus A310-300s should be taken over by Turkish Airlines . However, only two aircraft were transferred to Mahan Air. With these aircraft, Mahan Air was able to establish international connections to more distant destinations. In addition to Bangkok , Delhi and Jeddah , Düsseldorf and later Birmingham and Manchester were also included in the flight plan from spring 2002 . Further national and international goals followed. As early as 2003, Mahan Air entered into a cooperation with Düsseldorf-based LTU and offered its passengers connecting flights from Düsseldorf to selected North American destinations in the LTU route network. This cooperation has now ended, as LTU no longer exists as an independent company after the takeover by Air Berlin .

After the opening of the newly built Tehran Imam Khomeini Airport in May 2004, Mahan Air relocated most of its flight operations to the airport, which is located around 30 kilometers southwest of Tehran, and tried to use it as a hub between its European and Asian destinations with an attractive price-performance ratio establish. The maintenance center licensed according to international standards , which u. a. is maintained by the state-owned Iran Air and Sogerma , will initially remain at the old Tehran-Mehrabad airport until its closure.

In the same year were wetlease a first ever Airbus A320-200 and A321-200 Düsseldorf Bluewings under contract, which should replace the Russian Tupolews. Up to eight copies of the A320 family were to be procured, but until 2007 only two A320-200s of the Blue Wings could be flown in - another copy is operated under lease by the Armenian Blue Sky , which also operates other aircraft of other types for Mahan Air .

In July 2007 the British aviation authorities imposed a landing ban on Mahan Air for all airports in Great Britain. It was u. a. criticized the lack of the legally required TCAS and the EGPWS . In September of the same year, the European Commission followed the arguments of the British authorities and finally added Mahan Air to the list of operating bans for the airspace of the European Union . During the routine, six-monthly review of this list, the European Commission Mahan Air held out the prospect of lifting the entry ban, as they were well on the way to completely eliminating the defects complained of. This took place on July 24, 2008.

In 2011 the US blacklisted Mahan Air. This would freeze all of the company's assets in the United States, and US citizens would be prohibited from doing business with the company. The background to the attack allegedly planned by Iran on the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the USA is said to be. According to the US Treasury Department, Mahan Air supported those units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that are believed to be behind the alleged assassination plans.

Because of the trade sanctions against Iran, Mahan Air was not able to purchase western-made aircraft directly from the manufacturer. Therefore, it obtained its aircraft on the used and leasing market. In November 2011, Mahan Air acquired the former government aircraft of the flight readiness of the Federal Ministry of Defense of the type Airbus A310-300 with the name " Theodor Heuss ", which was last flown in June 2010 for the German federal government. In November 2015, the machine was sold to Tehran Airlines .

In February 2015, Mahan Air became the penultimate airline worldwide to retire the Airbus A300 Version B2 . Iran Air is thus operating the world's last aircraft of this type, which is also the oldest active Airbus aircraft in the world.

In May 2015, Mahan Air added a new type of aircraft to its fleet with seven Airbus A340-600s . The machines had previously been in operation at Virgin Atlantic and Hi Fly .

In April 2016, Saudi Arabia closed its airspace to society, citing security concerns. Previously, there had been political tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Federal Aviation Office of the Federal Republic of Germany sent Mahan Air a notice on January 21, 2019, in which: "The immediate suspension of the operating license to carry out scheduled air traffic to and from Germany is ordered". The reason for this are foreign and security policy interests of the Federal Republic of Germany. Israeli media reported that the federal government took the move under US diplomatic pressure.

Destinations

Mahan Air serves numerous destinations within Iran and major cities in the Middle East . In the German-speaking area , Dusseldorf and Munich were served until January 2019 .

fleet

Airbus A300-600 of Mahan Air

Airbus A310-300 of Mahan Air

BAe 146-300 from Mahan Air

Mahan Air's Boeing 747-400 EP-MNB, which was commissioned again in 2019

As of August 2020, the Mahan Air fleet consists of 40 aircraft with an average age of 25.2 years:

Aircraft type	number	ordered	Remarks	Seats ( First / Business / Eco )
Airbus A300-600R	4th		partly former Lufthansa planes ; EP-MMO (built in 2002) is the last A300 passenger aircraft ever produced (first operator Japan Airlines as JA016D); three inactive	247 (- / 16/231)
Airbus A310-300	9	2	former Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines planes; Mahan Air operates the world's largest fleet of A310 passenger aircraft (25 still in service worldwide); two Uzbekistan Airways planes to be floated ; four inactive	180 (- / 23/157)
Airbus A340-300	5		former Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic planes ; four inactive	215 (7/48/160)
Airbus A340-600	7th		former Virgin Atlantic machines; three inactive	249 (- / 21/228)
Avro RJ85	5		three inactive
Avro RJ100	3		all inactive	90 (- / - / 90)
BAe 146-200	1			VIP
BAe 146-300	4th		two inactive	90 (- / - / 90)
Boeing 747-300	1		oldest aircraft in the fleet, built in 1986; former UTA and Air France aircraft ; world's last active Boeing 747-300 passenger aircraft and world's oldest active Boeing 747 from a passenger airline; inactive	456 (- / 24/432)
Boeing 747-400	1		put back into operation in 2019 after 10 years of storage; inactive
total	40	2

Incidents

Mahan Air has had no fatal accidents in its history. However, due to security deficiencies (which have since been rectified), it was on the list of operating bans for the airspace of the European Union from September 2007 to July 2008 .

See also

• List of airlines

Web links

Commons : Mahan Air  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mahan Air website (Persian, English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ arabianbusiness.com - Mahan Air makes waves (English), accessed on 1 February 2007
2. ↑ arabianbusiness.com - Making waves (English) accessed on March 1, 2007
3. ↑ European Commission - List of airlines that are prohibited from operating in the EU, accessed on September 11, 2007
4. ↑ airliners.de - EU lifts landing ban for Pakistan International Airlines , accessed on November 28, 2007.
5. ↑ ^{a b} aero.de - EU updates "Black List", July 24, 2008 , accessed on July 20, 2015.
6. ↑ Mahan Air in the USA on the “black list”. In: Austrian Wings. October 13, 2011, accessed December 22, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Björn Hengst, Matthias Gebauer and Gerald Traufetter: "Theodor Heuss": Iranian airline buys retired Chancellor jet. In: Spiegel Online . November 20, 2011, accessed December 22, 2014 . 
8. ↑ https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/Airbus/A310/EP-THR-Tehran-Airline/NBQtMb
9. ↑ ch-aviation - Iran's Mahan Air world's last A300 Classic operator (English) accessed on January 26, 2015
10. ↑ Last A300B2 ceases passenger operations. In: aero.de. February 17, 2015, accessed February 17, 2015 . 
11. ↑ ch-aviation - Mahan Air takes delivery of a total of seven A340-600s (English), accessed on May 9, 2015
12. ↑ aerotelegraph.com - Saudi Arabia excludes Mahan Air, April 14, 2016
13. ↑ Federal Foreign Office - Government press conference accessed on January 21, 2019
14. ^ "Bowing to US Pressure, Germany Bans Iran Airline From Its Airspace" Haaretz.com of January 21, 2019
15. ↑ mahan.aero - International Route Network , accessed on June 14, 2016
16. ^ Mahan Airlines Fleet Details and History. In: planespotters.net. Retrieved August 27, 2020 (English). 
17. ↑ mahan.aero - Seat Map (English), accessed on July 20, 2015
18. ↑ https://www.planespotters.net/operators/Airbus/A310
19. ↑ Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
20. ↑ Incident: Mahan A306 near Istanbul on August 26th 2010, engine shut down in flight. In: The Aviation Herald . August 26, 2010, accessed December 22, 2014 .