June 16, 2017
Iran’s Aseman Airlines has fi-nalized an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3.0 billion, the company said Saturday, with an option to buy 30 more.
The deal, announced in April, was signed at a ceremony in Tehran and the 30 planes are due for delivery between 2022 and 2024.
However, the deal could be scuppered if US President Donald J. Trump doesn’t allow the US Treasury Department to issue a license permitting the sale.
Aseman spokesman Amir Reza Mostafavi told Agence France Presse (AFP) that Aseman would pay five percent of the contract in cash, with the remainder paid through a financing deal organized by Boeing. This is the most detailed explanation of the financing for any plane purchase deal given by an Iranian airline.
During the Obama Administration, the Treasury Department approved the sale of the 80 Boeings and 100 Airbuses to Iran Air. The first few Airbus jets have already arrived in Tehran.
Aseman currently has a fleet of 36 planes — half of them 105-seat Dutch Fokker 100s.
Its three Boeing 727-200s are almost as old as the Islamic revolution, having made their first flights in 1980.
