Press TV - Iran’s main airline Homa, known internationally as IranAir, has launched three new flight routes to Qatar amid a boom in bilateral relations that has helped trade flourish between Iran and Qatar.

A senior Homa official said on Sunday that the new routes will accommodate flights between three cities in southern Iran to the Qatari capital Doha.

“Routine weekly flights to Doha from airports in Bandar Abbas, ... Asaluyeh and Lamerd are the three flight routes that this company has moved to launch in these days,” said Abolqassem Jalali, who serves as the commerce and operation deputy at Homa.

Jalali said planes that Homa purchased two years ago from the French turboprop maker ATR will serve the new flight routes.

He said the a first round trip flight from Doha to Assaluyeh, in Iran’s Bushehr province and on the coast of the Persian Gulf, was just launched on Sunday and will take place on the same day every week.

The official said new flights between Bandar Abbas and Doha had started on February 6 and will continue Sundays and Thursdays every week.

The route from Lamerd, in the Iranian Fars province, to Doha had also begun on Thursday and will continue once a week on the same day, said Jalali.

The new flight routes come amid growing economic and political relations between Iran and Qatar. That has come against the backdrop of a nearly three-year-old blockade imposed on the Persian Gulf country by several Arab states in the region, including Saudi Arabia.

Iranian businesses have taken a more active role in Qatar since the blockade was imposed in June 2017.

The routes also come after Iran launched a first shipping service from Bushehr to Qatar’s Hamad Port in August.