Home-made passenger planes to join Iran\'s air fleet

Managing-Director of the Iranian Aviation Industries Organization (IAIO) Manouchehr Manteqi announced that a new home-made passenger plane, capable of carrying 150 passengers, will join the country's air fleet in the next five years. Manteqi stated on Monday that Iran is currently developing an indigenous twin-engine turbojet aircraft, which can seat 150 passengers. He said the development of the plane would take five years, of which three years would be spent on its design and the rest on technical tests. In 2013, Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization Hamid Reza Pahlevani announced that a number of home-made passenger planes, capable of carrying 80, 100 and 150 passengers, will join the country's air fleet. The Islamic Republic of Iran plans to manufacture three domestically-designed passenger planes by 2026, Pahlevani said at the time. After purchasing the production license for the Antonov-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003. The first IRAN-140 aircraft was introduced by Iran in 2003. Five domestically-manufactured IRAN-140 planes were completed in October 2008 to increase the country's transportation capacity and upgrade the Iranian passenger fleet. The IRAN-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft which can fly almost 1,865 miles before re-fuelling and its passenger model seats 52 people.