PARIS: Western planemakers look set to reap billions of dollars in deals with Iran, if a deal is done on its nuclear programme to allow one of the world’s most promising aviation markets to come out of quarantine.
Iran and six world powers were struggling on Friday to remove the last obstacles to an historic deal in Vienna that could resolve a more than 12-year dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, extending talks through the weekend.
For Tehran, the prospect of sweeping economic sanctions and a long-standing US trade embargo being lifted represents a chance to renew a fleet whose average age of 23 years is almost twice the international average, and to do so at affordable prices, after years of paying over the odds on the black market.
For Airbus, Boeing and other manufacturers, that could mean up to $20 billion in deals, shaped in part by the negotiating positions of various camps during the lengthy nuclear talks. And for Iran Air’s 38-year-old Boeing 747SP, the last of its kind, it should mean well-deserved retirement.
“There are a lot of aircraft that are really at the end of their lives,” said Maximo Gainza, senior consultant at UK-based fleet watcher Ascend Flightglobal.
“Iran is going to be a very hot market as and when sanctions are lifted.” The chairman of Iran Air, Farhad Parvaresh, told Reuters last year that, as soon as sanctions were eased, Iran would seek to obtain at least 100 wide-body and short-haul jets, but that it would turn to Russia and China if nuclear talks collapsed.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2015
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