A senior Iranian aviation official says the country is developing a new generation of a small indigenous passenger plane that can be used to carry out domestic flights.
Manouchehr Manteqi, the managing director of the Iranian Aviation Industries Organization (IAIO), said on Friday that the Iran-141 plane is an inter-city aircraft capable of doing short-haul flights.

He further noted that the IAIO is currently developing a new generation of the Iran-141 aircraft.

Manteqi stated that some parts of the new plane have already been designed and manufactured, and production of the aircraft will start by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (ending March 20, 2014) if the necessary budget is provided.

On July 8, former Head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization Hamid Reza Pahlevani said the Islamic Republic was designing an indigenous twin-engine turbojet aircraft, which can seat 150 passengers.

He added that researchers from the IAIO, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Company (HESA), Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran University of Science and Technology, and Isfahan University of Technology are working on the project.

Iran has several private and public airline companies in operation. The oldest is the state-run Iran Air.

The expansion of Iran's civil aircraft fleet comes despite the US-engineered sanctions against the country's civil aviation industry. Under the sanctions, international companies are banned from selling aircraft or their spare parts to Iran.

Iran is currently cooperating with Ukraine and Russia in the production and operation of the Antonov An-140 aircraft, which can carry 52 passengers.

After purchasing the production license for the An-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003.

By Press TV

 

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