The airlines based in Iran ran into rough skies in the past year and had to deal with numerous problems. The primary reason for the problems was the decision of the Government of Iran to reduce the subsidy provided on gasoline for local operators. As a result, airlines were left with no other option, and ticket prices went up suddenly by 75%.
Due to this, there was a sudden drop in the number of air travelers, and airlines were left with no other option but to fly empty seats on many routes. The increase in prices meant that travelers could not afford the tickets and thus, the seats were left vacant.
Abdolreza Mousavi, the head of the association of Iranian airlines, said that they are having a tough time providing air travel at reasonable rates to the air travelers in Iran. The sudden changes in gasoline prices have made the market volatile and the stability of the air travel industry has been hampered severely. Abdolreza Mousavi expressed the problems of airliners while speaking to Pars Herald.
As per local reports, it has been observed that the number of air travelers have fallen by 30% when compared to the previous Persian Year, especially during Nowruz. Nowruz is the phase which attracts a high number of air travelers and is one of the few days when the number of air travelers in Iran are the highest.
But this Nowruz, Abdolreza Mousavi said that no reports were available yet officially. However, by observing the current prevailing air travel trends in the market, he added that there was a clear trend and the number of travelers has definitely gone down. The trends were observed as per the decentralized studies of different airlines.
There were only 1,900,000 air travelers in Iran this year during Nowruz, which is just a fraction of the previous year’s travelers. Looking at the trends, the Government of Iran has announced that they are formulating a special budget plan that would be in the best interests of local airlines and would help the companies in clearing their oil debts with the Oil Ministry of Iran.