Iran Air

Iran Air is the national flag carrier of Iran. The airline's major hub is at Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran. Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz are the focus cities of the airline. Apart from providing scheduled passenger flights and chartered flights to a number of destinations within and outside the country, the airline provides cargo services as well. It provides direct international flights by using airports in the major cities, located within Iran. The airline is fully owned by the Government of Iran. Go through the following lines to know more about the history and profile of Iran Air.

History
Iran Air�s history can be traced back to May 1944, when its forerunner - Iranian Airways was established. Iran Air commenced its first passenger flight, right after the World War II, from Tehran to holy city of Mashhad. In 1954, another private airline "Pars Airways" was established, which undertook freight services to Europe. In 1961, Iranian government decided to establish a national airline of Iran. Following this decision, on February 24, 1961, both "Iranian Airways" and "Pars Airways" merged to form a new airline called "Iranb Air", with the acronyms and the symbol of "Homa" bird. This new airline commenced its activities in April 1962.

Subsidiaries
Iran Air Cargo is a subsidiary of Iran Air. Initially, Iran Air had a single Boeing 747-200F cargo aircraft, which was grounded after sometime. However, the carrier continued to operate its cargo service by acquiring two Airbus A300B4F aircraft in May 2008. Iran Air also has a low-cost airline named Iran Air Tours, which began its scheduled operations in 1990.

Destinations
Currently, Iran Air flies to a number of destinations in different parts of the world. Uzbekistan (Central Asia), China, Japan and South Korea (East Asia), India (to Mumbai) and Pakistan (South Asia), Malaysia, Thailand (Southeast Asia), Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Dubai (Southwest Asia) are the Asian countries, to which the airline plies scheduled flights. In Europe, the airline flies to Austria, Azerbaijan, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom. Apart from plying regular flights, the airline operates chartered flights from the cities of Iran to Jeddah, during the Hajj and Umrah seasons. The carrier's flights to Africa, North America (United States) and South America (Venezuela) have been terminated.

Fleet
With the help of new generation Russian aircrafts, Iran Air is planning to modernized its fleet as well as the fleet of its subsidiary - Iran Air Tours. The airline is planning to purchase five Tupolev Tu-204-100s for Iran Air Tours, while it would take two Ilyushin Il-96-300s on lease from Russia�s KrasAir, for a short period. Currently, Iran Air consists of 54 aircrafts in its fleet. These include MD-82, Fokker 100, Boeing 747SP, Boeing 747-200C, Boeing 747-200B Combi, Boeing 747-100B, Boeing 727-200, Airbus A320-200, Airbus A310-300, Airbus A310-200, Airbus A300-600, Airbus A300-B4F, Airbus A300B4 and Airbus A300B2.