Mahan Air (W5, Tehran Mehrabad) has announced it will terminate its 3x weekly Tehran Mehrabad-Paris CDG, France service citing US sanctions.
"We have been told that (flights to France) have been cancelled... as of the first of April," an operator at the airline's office in Tehran's Imam Khomeini Airport told AFP.
In January, Germany suspended Mahan Air’s licence on the grounds that Mahan Air posed a threat to the country's national security.
At the time, Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas echoed Washington's stance that Mahan Air operates regular cargo flights around the Middle East ferrying shipments that include arms on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) (Qods Force).
"The airline transports equipment and people to war zones, especially to Syria," he said in a statement. "The nuclear agreement with Iran remains important, but we have always made it clear that we respond appropriately to individual developments."
In June 2018, US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, warned airports around the world that they risk consequences for their continued dealings with sanctioned Iranian carriers, Mahan Air in particular.
"Countries and companies around the world should take note of the risks associated with granting landing rights and providing aviation services to the airlines used by Iran to export terrorism throughout the region, including the risks of our secondary sanctions," she said at the time.
Mahan Air also serves Barcelona El Prat and Milan Malpensa in western Europe while in the former Eastern bloc, it serves Baku Heydar Aliev International, Kyiv Boryspil, Moscow Vnukovo, and Yerevan.
