Iran's Zagros Airlines agrees to buy 28 Airbus planes

Le Bourget : Iran's Zagros Airlines has agreed to buy 28 planes from Airbus, the European aircraft maker said on Thursday at the Paris Air Show.

Zagros, which flies domestic routes in Iran, signed a memorandum of understanding to pick up 20 planes of the A320neo family, and eight of the A330neo type, Airbus said in a statement.

Zagros is already the largest operator of Airbus single-aisle aircraft in Iran with 11 A320ceo planes, it said.

The airline will use the new planes to upgrade its fleet and expand operations both at home and internationally, Zagros CEO Seyed Abdolreza Mousavi was quoted in the statement as saying.

The deal still needs a number of authorisations before being confirmed, notably from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a US Treasury Department body that administers and enforces American sanctions against foreign countries.

Several international sanctions against Iran were lifted following a nuclear deal with Tehran in July 2015, including those banning the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran.

According to estimates from the Iranian civil aviation authority, the country's airlines will need to purchase between 400 and 500 new planes over the next decade.