Tehran, Iran, Sept. 13
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Iranian MP Mohammad Reza Rezaei Kochi, who heads the Iranian parliament's reconstruction committee, said the country plans to file a complaint against Franco-Italian turboprop maker ATR for failing to deliver eight remaining aircraft to Iran under a $536 million deal.
“Based on the deal, ATR was supposed to deliver 20 aircraft to Iran. So far, we have taken delivery of 12 new generation ATR 72-600 aircraft (ordered by Iran in 2016),” Rezaei Kochi said on September 13, ICANA news agency reported.
With the “cruel” US sanctions looming, ATR has announced it cannot honor its contractual commitments and this means that eight remaining planes will not be delivered to Iran, he added.
Stressing that ATR should not have given in to US pressure, the Iranian lawmaker said the Islamic Republic would lodge a complaint against ATR.
Recently, the world’s largest commercial turboprop maker ATR said it was in talks with alternative buyers for remaining aircraft which it has to deliver to Iran, the company’s Italian shareholder Leonardo said.
The European airplane manufacturer delivered five more ATR turboprop aircraft early last month just before Washington triggered the new sanctions on Aug. 6.
For more deliveries, however, the company appears to have given up on soliciting the United States, with Leonardo Chief Executive Officer Alessandro Profumo telling Bloomberg TV that ATR was seeking new customers for the aircraft.
“We are pretty confident that we will finalize the re-allocation to other countries by the end of this year,” he said.
The US decision on Iran has raised question marks over whether ATR can reach a target of stabilizing annual deliveries at 80 aircraft in 2018.
Profumo tried to play down the fallout, saying the company does not expect “any meaningful impact” from the US sanctions on Iran.
The planemaker had earlier said it would suffer financial damage if it were unable to deliver the aircraft it has already produced following earlier US approvals.