Iran Air
is an
airline
based in
Iran
. It is the
flag carrier
of Iran, and is owned by the
government
of Iran.
Iran Air
Boeing 747-100
The airline was started in
1944
, and was called the Iranian Airways Company. In
1946
, the airline made its first flight. It started by flying only to places in Iran, but soon started flights to other countries. It started by flying
Douglas DC-3
airplanes. Later, it bought other types of airplanes. By the late 1950s, Iran Air was moving 80,000 people each year.
[1]
In 1961, because the government ordered it, Iran Air combined with another Iranian airline, Persian Air Services. This combined company was owned by the government and called United Iranian Airlines, but it changed its name to Iranian National Airlines. The new airline carried about 142,000 people a year, and by the late 1960s carried 403,000 people.
[1]
In the early 1970s, the airline bought five
Boeing 747s
. After the
Islamic Revolution
, Iran Air was not allowed to buy planes from the
United States
, but it still bought planes from
Airbus
. By the mid 2000s, though, the airline was not able to get enough parts to keep its planes flying, and had to stop flying some of them.
[1]
During the early 2000s, Iran Air carried about six million people a year, and an airline it owned,
Iran Air Tours
, carried two million people. Iran Air had 9,000 people working for it, and made about
$
407.44 million.
[1]
Iran Air has the following types of aircraft in its fleet, as of September 2009:
[2]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Iran Air
.