Government negotiating with Iran Air to dispose of the 3 Airbus A350-900
The government met Iran Air management and Iran government officials on Thursday to renegotiate the orders for the three A350-900 aircraft ordered by the last regime, government sources, said. One official said that Iran Air CEO and an Iranian Minister met with Deputy Minister Public Enterprise Development, Eran Wickramaratne and other ministry officials to negotiate the three aircraft, adding “the meeting was positive”. Iranian Air officials were also interested in a codeshare arrangement with SriLankan Airlines.
The former management entered into a contract in 2013 with Airbus for the purchase of eight A350-900 aircraft to replace the existing wide-body fleet, Mr. Wickramaratne told the Business Times earlier this week. Out of these eight, four aircraft are due this year and the balance four were to come during a span of six years. “We settled a wet lease for one aircraft due this year and there’re three more to settle which we are in the process of negotiating.” The official said that on Thursday the Iranian officials met with the Ministry officials to discuss the wet leases of these three aircraft.
Mr. Wickramaratne said that the balance A350-900 aircraft due in a span of six years will be included in the Request for Proposal (RFP) for SriLankan Airlines restructure that the Ministry of Public Enterprise Development is gearing to issue soon. “This will be included in the RFP and then the prospective partners will be requested to find a way to dispose these aircraft,” Mr. Wickramaratne told the Business Times earlier this week.