With its main hubs at Teheran Mehrabad (THR) and Imam Khomeini (IKA) airports, Iran Air flies a network covering the Middle East, the Far East and Europe. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1980, the airline could no longer buy airplanes from either Boeing and Douglas, thus relying for many years on European manufacturers Airbus and Fokker to rejuvenate its fleet, but through the years faced more and more difficult to get new aircraft and spare parts even outside the USA. Following a relaxation of the sanctions during the Obama administration, in 2016 Iran Air placed huge orders with both Boeing and Airbus plus a smaller one with ATR, but a new course of American foreign relations initiated with the Trump administration made it impossible for the orders to be converted in new aircraft in the fleet, except for a couple of Airbus A330-200, one A321-200 and 13 ATR 72-600. The new aircraft boast new Busines Class cabins with lie-flat seats on the A330-200, individual IFE screens with audio and video on demand, but service onboard remains poor as the safety record (Photo Wikimedia Commons / Mark Harkin)
- - 5 STARS: Awarded to airlines achieving a very high, overall quality performance. It recognizes high standards of onboard product together with consistent and excellent standards of staff service across airport and cabin environments
- - 4 STARS: Awarded to airlines that deliver a good overall quality performance and provide good product standards across different travel cabins
- - 3 STARS: Awarded to airlines delivering a fair quality performance equating to the industry 'average' of acceptable product and service standards
- - 2 STARS: Shows airlines delivering a lower total quality performance, in some instances below the industry average across many rating categories
- - 1 STAR: Represents a poor quality of product delivered across the assessment sectors