Iranian banks expand fleet procurement funding

The Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Ministry has reimposed a ban on all flights to and from Iran and Afghanistan due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases in both countries, Reuters has reported.

The suspensions took effect on July 18, 2020, and are valid indefinitely.

According to the ch-aviation schedules module and Flightradar24 ADS-B data, Mahan Air (W5, Tehran Mehrabad) was the only airline operating scheduled flights between Tehran Imam Khomeini and Istanbul New prior to the suspension. All other flights between the two countries operated by Mahan Air or IranAir (IR, Tehran Mehrabad) had already been suspended earlier. Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul New) and Pegasus Airlines (PC, Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen) planned to resume flights to Iran on August 1, although this is now unlikely.

In terms of traffic from Afghanistan, Kam Air (RQ, Kabul) operated services from Kabul to Istanbul and Ankara Esenboga, while Turkish Airlines resumed its services to Kabul on June 24, stopped them again in early July, and...

The United States has imposed sanctions on a Chinese logistics company, which, it alleged, had acted as a general sales agent (GSA) for blacklisted Iranian carrier Mahan Air (W5, Tehran Mehrabad).

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement on May 19 that Shanghai Saint Logistics provided services such as cargo bookings for Mahan Air flights between China and Iran.

Mahan Air has also been carrying, the statement alleged, Iranian scientists and technology using materials sourced from China on charter flights to Venezuela to aid the government of President Nicolás Maduro in its efforts to revive energy production.

The US blacklisted Mahan Air in October 2011, and the sanctions on Shanghai Saint Logistics - which block any assets it has within US jurisdictions and bans US-based entities from transacting with them - are part of Washington’s ongoing efforts to shut the airline down.

Shanghai Saint Logistics, it said, is Mahan’s cargo GSA in Shanghai providing services such as sales, financial, administrative, and marketing support and freight reception and...