Iran Air

History Iran Air came about in 1962, after Iranian Airways and Persian Air Services were joined together, taking the name of Iran Air. Iranian Airways had been the first Iranian flag carrier, when it was formed in 1944. Iran Air soon built a large route map consisting of flights all over the Middle East, to Northern Africa, Europe and New York, and including a dense domestic flight schedule. The first planes used by the company were the Avro York[?], DC-3, DC-6[?] and Vickers Viscount[?] types.

In 1965, their first jet plane, a Boeing 727, arrived. This plane became an important part of Iran Air's fleet because it allowed the airline to reach both European and remote Iran areas faster. The much desired route to New York was opened in 1970 with Boeing 707 aircraft, but those aircraft were later replaced on the route with Boeing 747SP jets in 1976.

With the Islamic revolution[?] of 1979, Iran Air had to suddenly halt all it's services to New York, as a consequence of the embargo imposed by the United States on Iran. Because of that, the 747SP's began to be used heavily on the airline's European and Asian routes. Later, in the 1980s, the airline began buying second hand Airbus A319[?] aircraft. They were not allowed to buy them directly from Airbus because of the ongoing embargo. In 1987, in what the United States called a tragic mistake, one of Iran Air's A319's was flying over the Persian Gulf on it's way to Sana'a from Tehran. According to official documents, when the plane flew near the ship US Vincennes[?], the airplane's crew failed to respond to a warning sent from the boat. After a few more warnings, the ship fired a few bombs, and the plane exploded after being hit, everyone on board dying. This tragedy almost caused an international incident.

In 1992, a plane belonging to charter airline Iran Air Tours, a subsidiary of Iran Air, also crashed, while trying to land at Tehran. In that case, there wasn't any survivors either. During the 1990s, Iran Air was able to buy some Fokker F-100[?] planes, but, again because of the embargo, that was the only type that joined the fleet during the '90s.

Nowadays Iran Air has suffered a bad spare pieces drought, because it's hard for the airline to find anyone around the world that would sell them new airplane tools under the current political situation. Its fleet consists of Boeing, Airbus and Fokker equipment, and the airline's livery consists of an all white fuselage plane, with the name Iran Air on dark, block letters above the passenger windows, and a dark blue drawing of a bird named Homa[?] on the tail, with a shade of dark-blue over it. Model airplane wise, Iran Air is under contract with Schabak of Germany. In addition, they announced in 2003, that Madrid will become their first hispanic destination.