German airliner Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines plan new flights to Iran amid a growing demand as business and tourism is crawling back to life in the resource-rich country, media reports say. 

Lufthansa will launch flights from Munich to Tehran and switch to larger planes for its flights from Frankfurt to Tehran from the summer of 2016, the IRNA news agency said, citing the German aviation website aerotelegraph.

“The German air carrier will use a Boeing 747 on its route from Frankfurt to Tehran instead of an Airbus A340,” it said.

Austrian Airlines is also expanding its flight service to Iran, offering one extra daily flight to Tehran starting March 11, 2016.

As a result, Austria’s national carrier will be departing twice a day from Vienna for the Iranian capital.

Deploying an Airbus A320, Austrian Airlines will also offer a day flight in addition to the existing night flights, the report said.

It quoted Chief Commercial Officer of Austrian Airlines Andreas Otto as saying that his company was “receiving clear signals of a revival in economic relations between Austria and Iran from the business community and political decision-makers”.

“That's why we wanted to react quickly,” Otto added.

Austrian President Heinz Fischer became the first Western head of state to visit Iran in more than a decade in September.

Austria, which is avowedly neutral and did not break ties with Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has long enjoyed relatively warm relations with Tehran.

Germany’s TUI Group, the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world, is in talks with Iranian officials to make investments in the country which is being billed as the most lucrative hospitality development market.

Earlier this month, minister of economic affairs, labor and transport for Germany's federal state of Lower Saxony Olaf Lies led a delegation of 100 German politicians and traders on a four-day visit to Iran.

The visit came on the heels of German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel who traveled to Iran in July at the head of a high-profile delegation of state officials and representatives of Daimler, Siemens, Linde, BASF, GIZ and others.

By Press TV