Iran’s aviation sector is expected to get a much-needed reprieve from international sanctions that have severely limited its capability to obtain new commercial aircraft units, let alone procure spare parts for old ones, over the past 36 years.

Tehran indicated that it would need to procure some 500 passenger planes over the next 10 years to reinvigorate the country’s ailing aviation sector.

Iranian airline companies are understood to operate a fleet of 140 civilian aircraft, some owned and others leased, including Russian-made planes such as the Tupolevs. Many of these planes are more than 30 years old, fuel-inefficient and present major safety issues to passengers. Some of these planes require up to three times as much fuel as their newer and more technologically advanced counterparts, driving up costs in a country where fuel is not cheap.

Its ageing fleet apart, Iran urgently needs to upgrade its airport infrastructure. Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Kundi acknowledged very recently that international partners and investors are required to develop the country’s airports.

“Iran’s commercial aviation sector is going to be an exciting market for us,” Bernard Dunn, president of Boeing Middle East, tells MEED.  National carrier Iran Air’s Boeing fleet has an average age of more than 35 years, with the last Boeing plane delivered to the country’s then thriving aviation sector prior to the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

However, the US government’s tough sanctions, which disallowed Boeing to supply Iran with new aircrafts as well as spare parts for several decades, put it in a challenging spot to compete with European manufacturers, particularly Airbus, which has continued to supply Iran with new planes through the 1980s and 1990s, and second-hand fleet through the 2000s.

An ageing aircraft fleet has been blamed for the Islamic Republic recording some of aviation history’s worst civilian plane crashes. Some 11 crashes were recorded between 2000 and 2006, claiming more than 100 lives, and similar incidents continue to occur nearly every year, mostly involving the Russian Tupolevs.

It is also noteworthy that the sanctions went beyond disallowing the procurement of new planes to those of modern avionics equipment and other parts needed to keep the planes air-worthy.