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Iran’s Aseman airline ready to launch Tehran-New York direct flight

Iran Materials 4 December 2013 17:03 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 4

By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:

Iran's Aseman airline is ready to launch a direct flight between Tehran and New York, the airlines' managing director said on Dec. 4.

"The flight would use an Airbus 340 aircraft," the IRNA News Agency quoted Abbas Rahmatian as saying.

According to Rahmatian, the proposed flight would take at least 13 hours.

Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Ali Mohammad Nourian said on Dec. 2 that three Iranian airlines have requested permission to launch a direct flight between Iran and the United States, the Mehr News Agency reported.

"All three airlines can have long-distance flights and are fit for the purpose," he added.

Nourian said on Nov. 19 the required preparations have been made and if negotiations in the coming days move in a positive direction, we will be ready to launch the flights by the end of 2013.

In the initial phase the flights will be chartered, adding that some American and Canadian airlines have also expressed readiness to fly passengers between the two countries using their Boeing 777 planes, he said.

"Given the positive outlook of our government and the international talks, we hope that this issue is soon settled so that the Iranian fellow citizens in the U.S. can travel between the two countries with greater ease," Nourian said.

While in New York to attend the 68th session of the UN general assembly, President Hassan Rouhani pledged to facilitate travel back to the homeland for Iranian expatriates residing in the U.S., the Tasnim News Agency reported.

The U.S. and the city of Los Angeles in particular, is home to hundreds of thousands of Iranian expatriates.

Travelers between Iran and the U.S. currently have to change flights in a third country, usually in Europe or the Gulf states. Although personal travel is generally exempted from U.S. sanctions, experts say there are a couple of major obstacles before Iran-U.S. direct flights can resume.

The U.S. treasury has barred Iranian airlines including Iran Air from being allowed to land or operate in the United States. Furthermore, extra-territorial U.S. sanctions prevent European airports from providing Iranian carriers with fuel or accepting money from them.

Unlike U.S. flights, Iranian airlines still travel to London directly but are denied re-fuelling. Iran Air has at least three flights a week to London but has to stop in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to refuel each time it returns to Tehran. It can refuel in Ljubljana since the airport there has no direct flight to the U.S.

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