Iran Takes Delivery of 1st Airbus Plane after JCPOA

The Plane arrived in the Iranian capital on Thursday after it took off from Germany’s Hamburg with Iranian pilots on Wednesday.

The 189-seat plane, already painted in IranAir’s livery, is the first of 100 ordered from the company.

Iran Air is reportedly set to receive the next seven or eight planes from Airbus in 2017.

During a January 2016 visit to Paris by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Tehran signed a major contract with Airbus worth about $27 billion to buy 118 planes.

Iran and Airbus intensified business negotiations in October 2016 following the US decision to remove a final hurdle for Western aircraft manufacturers to sell planes to Iran under contracts signed after coming into force of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany).

While Western plane makers are very keen on trade with Iran, Washington still demands that even non-American manufacturers wishing to sell to Iran obtain an export license if their products include materials made in the United States. Airbus, based in Europe, buys more than 40 percent of all its aircraft parts from the US.

Iran sealed another deal in June worth around $25 billion with the US aerospace heavyweight, Boeing, for the purchase of 100 passenger planes.

In December, the deal with Boeing was finalized, allowing Iran to buy 80 planes within 10 years. The first deliveries are expected in 2018.