The Swiss announcement is the latest over the last several months to cut off Iranian planes from fuel in Europe.
According to PressTV, the only European airports where Iran is any longer able to get jet fuel are those in Belgrade, Serbia, and Budapest, Hungary.
The irony is that no sanctions—American or otherwise—are aimed at cutting off fuel for Iranian commercial aircraft. Suppliers seem to be following a pack mentality and halting supplies to Iranian planes for fear they might anger the Americans. The supplies sold to Iranian airlines are so small that the firms are not giving up any substantial business.
Last summer the US Congress passed legislation providing for sanctions to be imposed on companies that sold Iran gasoline or other refined oil products. The theory was that Iran, which was importing one-third of its gasoline, would be crippled by such sanctions. But the Islamic Republic has been boosting gasoline output. While all the world’s major fuel suppliers halted sales to Iran, that had no impact as Iran was able, in the nick of time, to supply its domestic market from its own gasoline output.
That US sanctions law, however, contained a very specific exemption because the US Congress had no intention of trying to cut off fuel supplies for Iranian commercial aircraft.
But the law took effect just weeks after the oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which made BP the most hated firm in America. BP feared that news stories about its selling jet fuel to Iran Air would bring it into further disrepute, so it halted all such sales. That prompted other firms servicing Iran Air to look at their contracts. And, one-by-one, they severed their ties to Iran Air, including even Total of France and OMV of Austria, which have been publicly disdainful of American sanctions.
Now the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) has also cut off Iran Air.
FOCA spokesman Anton Kohler announced Friday, “The weekly Tehran-Geneva flights have not been canceled, but Iran Air should get fuel from other countries, such as Serbia.”
The Geneva Fueling Services Company, the firm that provides aircraft with fuel at the Geneva airport, confirmed that it stopped fueling Iran Air flights in late April.
FOCA did not say why it had ordered a halt to the supplies. The Swiss have also been critical of US sanctions policies.
Several weeks ago, Iran announced that it was retaliating by denying fuel to aircraft from the European countries that had shut off supplies. But European countries were not shutting off supplies; it has been the decision of private companies to do so. The first state to take such an action has been Switzerland; FOCA is a government agency.
It isn’t clear if Iran has actually shut of fuel sales to all European aircraft. Sales to British Midlands, a small UK airline, were stopped even before Iran announced the retaliation. But no other airline has confirmed any supply shutoff.
Iranian officials have charged that the European shutoff is illegal, a violation of international agreements and a threat to flight safety. But the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) says there is no requirement to sell fuel. As for flight safety, a pilot would be guilty if he took off with insufficient fuel to reach his next destination. An airport would be guilty only if it required an aircraft to take off with insufficient fuel.
Iranian aircraft in Europe have been flying to, say, Paris, with enough extra fuel on board to fly a second leg to, say, Belgrade, where fuel for the final leg to Tehran is bought. This extra stop adds to Iran Air’s costs and means passengers face about 90 extra minutes before reaching Tehran.