June 17, 2016
President Rohani has declared a goal of making Tehran the chief air hub of the Eastern Hemisphere, displacing Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
He is actually getting some help from the EU, where aviation officials are irritated at Qatar Airways, Etihad and Emirates, which dominate the long distance long-distance travel with the help of subsidies from their governments.
Harry Hohmeister of Lufthansa recently complained that those three airlines operate seven times the capacity of all European carriers between the Persian Gulf and Europe.
With sanctions now cut back, the EU has been meeting with Iranian officials discussing what is called a “horizontal agreement” on air transport to boost EU cooperation with Iran in order to reduce the influence of Qatar and the UAE as hubs for long distance travel between Europe and the Far East.
Iran was in fact the chief stopover for those flights before the 1979 revolution. But air traffic soon went elsewhere. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in particular, invested heavily in airport construction to being a huge volume of flights to their hubs.
The Rohani Administration is pushing for the rapid expansion of Imam Khomeini International Airport south of Tehran so it can accept hundreds of flights daily, not just dozens. On Tuesday, for example, only 68 planes—46 from foreign airlines—landed at Imam Khomeini. That’s one landing every 21 minutes.
But there is a real question about whether the hub dreams are realistic. Many passengers want a beer or glass of wine during a layover. Women are not likely to be terribly happy at being ordered to buy a scarf to cover their hair while sitting in the transit lounge.
In a speech earlier this year, Rohani said, “Not only is Iran the closest and best air hub to link the West and the East, but it also is the best means for transferring culture and politics.” Talk of transferring “politics” is certain to raise the hackles of hardliners who fear Western influence more than the plague.
But the goal of the EU to cut down the power of the UAE and Qatar remains and that is really the key at this juncture.
Still a source close to the EU air industry told the Euractiv news service, “The enthusiasm is great, but I really don’t see this [Iran becoming a regional air hub] happening so fast.”
