Legislation passed by the House of Representatives on July 7 would essentially block the multibillion-dollar agreements with Boeing and Airbus, despite provisions in the nuclear accord that allowed for such deals. While President Obama is expected to veto that legislation, it has pushed back the clock for the airplane deliveries, much to the annoyance of Iranian officials.
I was not expecting it, but Im not surprised, either, said Farhad R. Alavi, managing partner at the Akrivis law group, a Washington firm that specializes in sanctions compliance. Its very consistent with past efforts by Congress to undermine the nuclear deal.
Boeings chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, speaking this month at theFarnborough International Airshow in Britain, an important annual industry event, may have added to the skepticism. He said that if his company could not sell planes to Iran Air, the state-run airline, under a memorandum of agreement reached in June, then nobody should.
Mr. Muilenburg was alluding to the Airbus deal, which was publicized to great fanfare when President Hassan Rouhani of Iran visited France, where Airbus has its headquarters, in January.
The Iranians are also finding it difficult to find financing from foreign banks still skittish about doing business with the country. The depressed price of oil, Irans main export, is not helping matters.
Further doubts have been stoked by presidential uncertainties in Iran and the United States. President Rouhani, a moderate who made the ending of nuclear-related sanctions a priority when elected in 2013, is now engulfed in a scandal involving inflated government wages that could doom his hopes for a second term, with Iranian elections less than a year away.
Iran is also warily contemplating the possibility that Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president of the United States, whose disdain for the nuclear accord is well known, could win in November. Whether he would try to withdraw from the accord is unclear.
The delayed aircraft deals have sent ripples of uncertainty through the aviation industry, potentially affecting anticipated work by financial institutions, suppliers, service providers, insurers, reinsurers and others, according to lawyers knowledgeable about how large aircraft purchase contracts are handled.
Iranian aviation officials, impatient to begin rejuvenating the countrys aging fleet of 250 aircraft of which more than a third are said to be grounded have hinted they may go elsewhere to buy planes.
The Iranians have expressed interest in a midsize jet under development by Japans Mitsubishi conglomerate, Reuters reported recently. In another possible sign of reduced expectations, there is speculation that the Iranians may cancel orders for 12 Airbus A380 jumbo jets, part of the 118-plane deal with Airbus that Mr. Rouhani announced seven months ago.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="675"]
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, right, during a meeting in Paris in January with the chief executive of Airbus, Thomas Enders, left. CreditEric Feferberg/Agence France-Presse Getty Images[/caption]Doubts also have emerged about whether Iran can lease new planes as an alternative, or a supplement, to buying them.
Industry analysts say leasing companies could have difficulties repossessing the planes in the event Iran is found to have violated the nuclear accord or to be using the planes for purposes other than civilian transportation.
Iran has not signed the Cape Town Convention, an agreement on international procedures for recovering mobile assets like aircraft.
A lot of people who lease planes will look at that and say, No, thank you, said Richard L. Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at Teal Group, an aerospace consulting firm in Fairfax, Va.
Mr. Aboulafia also expressed skepticism about the possibility of Irans becoming an important customer to either Boeing or Airbus. Most of the international routes to Iran have been claimed by airlines in neighboring Persian Gulf states, with service and reliability that Iran will have trouble matching.
Irans jetliner requirements could be real, but only if Tehran also agreed to reform its miserable state-owned economy, create private-sector airlines and adhere to international finance norms, Mr. Aboulafia wrote in an opinion piece published July 7 in Aviation Week, an industry magazine. There are no plans to do anything like this.
Even under a newly relaxed sanctions regime stipulated by the nuclear accord, both Boeing and Airbus need licenses from the United States Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control to sell aircraft to Iran. Airbus planes use American parts that are subject to United States government approval.
Both Boeing and Airbus have repeatedly said they are awaiting the licenses and cannot proceed without them. Treasury officials have declined to comment on when the licenses might be issued.
Boeing has rejected accusations by some congressional critics that its desire to sell airplanes to a country hostile to the United States is wrongheaded.
Basically what weve told them is, Look: The U.S. government and five other governments negotiated this agreement. Airplanes were a part of it, Tim D. Neale, a Boeing spokesman, said in a telephone interview.
He also suggested that Boeing was not prepared to relinquish any competitive opportunity to Airbus concerning the Iranian market. Iranian aviation officials have said they will need 500 planes in coming years.
If Airbus were able to go into that market and we werent able to be in there, too, and if Iran stays on the straight and narrow path and the moderates prevail politically and the market really grows in years ahead, Mr. Neale said, they would have that market to themselves.
This article was written by Rick Gladstone for The New York Times on July 22, 2016.
