“We have issued the first two licenses for the export of certain commercial passenger aircraft to Iran under this new policy – to Boeing and Airbus”.
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Dubon declined to offer a breakdown of how many of each model are involved in the initial sale, but said Airbus hoped to receive a second license allowing it to sell the remaining planes to Iran.
The European-based Airbus became the first manufacturer on Wednesday to receive permission from the U.S.to sell aircraft to Iran since sanctions were lifted on the country as part of an global nuclear deal struck earlier this year.
“Any final sales agreement would have to adhere to the license we’ve been issued”, Mark Sklar, a spokesman for Boeing, said by e-mail.
Earlier this year, Airbus and its U.S. rival Boeing each signed deals to supply over 100 jets to flag carrier IranAir to modernise and expand the country’s elderly fleet, held together by smuggled or improvised parts after years of sanctions, Reuters reported.
Base model A320s are now listed at an average of $98 million, while A330s start at $231.5 million.
Before the nuclear deal, which came into effect in January and under which Iran has curbed its atomic programme in return for a lifting of global sanctions, an embargo dating from 1995 prevented Western manufacturers from selling equipment and spare parts to Iranian companies.
Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R., Ill.), a critic of Iran plane deals, said, “There is a still a long way to go and many more hurdles to overcome before Iran can actually take delivery of these planes-and thankfully Congress is committed to making the process as hard and expensive as possible”.
The sales will be the United States aircraft maker’s first to Tehran since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, which was followed a year later by a break in diplomatic ties with Washington.
Though based overseas, Airbus needed the approval of the U.S. Treasury for the deal because at least 10 percent of the manufacturer’s components are of American origin.
Airbus, Boeing’s arch rival, also got the green light Wednesday from the United States to finalize the sale of 118 aircraft to Tehran.
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This approval, which is in the form of a license, concerns an order of $25 billion made by Iran Air aircraft to manufacturer in June. But it was later announced that a deal would be possible to carry out only after it was permitted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a subsidiary of the US Treasury. Iran Air also will lease 29 new Boeing 737s in a deal that Iranian officials have suggested would be worth some $25 billion in total. Lawmakers on a panel in the House of Representatives enacted a measure to block the sales, but it did not win support in the full Congress.
