Tasnim – Russia's Sukhoi Civil Aircraft said its plan to sell planes to Iran is still in place, adding that it was too early to talk about canceling the deal for delivery of SuperJet 100 (SSJ100) passenger planes to Tehran.

It is too early to have regrets about Iran not getting the jets, Sukhoi press service said, Sputnik reported on Sunday.

“We have not received an answer – either a positive or a negative one” from the US regarding the approval for the deal, the company added.

In 2018, the Russian company signed memorandums of understanding on the delivery of 40 Sukhoi SSJ100R passenger planes to two Iranian airlines until 2022.

The remarks came after Secretary of Association of Iranian Airlines Maqsoud Asadi Samani in a recent interview with local agencies said, “It appears that due to the lack of license issued by OFAC (the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control), the arrival of the planes is out of the question for now”.

IranAir had ordered 100 from Airbus, 80 from Boeing and 20 from Franco-Italian turboprop maker ATR, but the US Treasury revoked licenses for their sales after President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May.

Only 16 aircraft were delivered – 13 by ATR and three by Airbus - before the licenses were withdrawn.

Hence, Iran's aviation is facing serious headwinds, with Samani saying the new round of sanctions is harder to bypass than the past.

“Despite the difficult conditions created for the country’s aviation industry, each airline has plans to buy mostly second-hand but young aircraft,” he said.