Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26
By Dalga Khatinoglu- Trend:
Iran is capable to sign contracts for purchasing a maximum of 40-50 planes [in the first post-sanctions step], Mohammad Reza Sabzalipour, head of Iran's World Trade Center told Trend.
While Iranian officials say the country is preparing to sign a contract for the purchase of 114 Airbuses during President Hassan Rouhani's visit to France, Sabzalipour says that the lack of financial resources, as well as skilled and trained flight teams won't allow Iran to carry out the mentioned deal.
Iran previously has announced that it is negotiating with other airplane manufacturing companies, from Russia, China, to sign contracts as well.
Back in April 2015, the head of Iran Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Ali Abedzadeh said the country needs to buy up to 500 passenger planes in the next 10 years to renovate its ageing fleet.
Meanwhile, Sabzalipur says Iranian officials have announced the contradictory figures for the needed airplanes.
"For instance, at least $3.5 billion is needed as pre-payments for a contract with worth $15 billion," he said. "Neither government, nor private companies in Iran have financial might to pay this amount."
He also said that Iran has announced that it is planning to purchase several Airbus wide-body planes, but the current runways should be adjusted for landing several wide-body planes.
"Furthermore, the lack of well-trained flight team to operate the advanced airplanes is a problem," he said.
Sabzalipour added that currently 120 passenger planes are operational in the country.
"Iranian companies wouldn't put the current old airplanes out of service and replace them by new ones. We face lack of skilled flight team even for current 120 passenger planes, then how Iran would operate new modern airplanes?," he said.