MNA � The latest five ATR turboprop aircraft entered service on Friday starting on busy domestic routes such as Tehran to Mashhad.







IranAir took delivery of five more ATR turboprop aircraft�only a day before the return of US illegal�sanctions that have already torpedoed Iran's plane purchases with other major providers. The planes that had left France�s Toulouse earlier in the day landed in Tehran�s International Mehrabad Airport on August 5, Sunday�morning, after a short stop for refueling in the northwestern city of Urmia.

IranAir signed last year a contract to buy 20 ATR 72-600 aircraft,�joint-owned by France-based Airbus and Leonardo of Italy, worth $576 million.

ATR - which had delivered 8 planes to Iran under the deal and started building another 12 - has been lobbying the US�Treasury to allow it to take advantage of the normal wind-down period for Iran business by giving it temporary new licenses.

Airbus said last month it would not attempt to deliver any more planes to Iran in the wind-down period. It has delivered just three of 100 ordered by IranAir.

Boeing, which had sold 80 jets to IranAir under the 2015 nuclear deal, does not plan any deliveries.