IranAir restores flights to Turkey’s Istanbul after 7 months of shutdown: IRNA

Homa said in a statement on Sunday that flights to Istanbul would resume as of September 25 with Flight 719 from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport to Istanbul. The airline said passengers should have had a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test 72 hours before arrival in Istanbul airport confirming they are free of coronavirus. It said Homa’s certificate to fly to Istanbul had been issued “based on negotiations between the two countries of Iran and Turkey.” Istanbul was one of Homa’s main destinations before the pandemic hit global air travel in late February. The airline has managed to restore flights to key destinations in Europe now that restrictions meant to curb the virus have eased. Flights to Istanbul had resumed in early July before Turkish authorities re-imposed fresh bans on travel from several countries in the Middle East, including from Iran, over concerns about a second wave of coronavoirus outbreak. The pandemic has had a deep impact on Iran’s aviation industry amid sanctions imposed by the United States and allies that ban certain Iranian airlines from travel to and above major countries. Domestic air travel has also been impacted with authorities saying last week that some companies had lost about 90 percent of demand for flights to main destinations. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Iran rose by 3,097 to 422,140 on Sunday, according to health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari who said deaths also surged by 183 to 24,301 while recoveries reached 359,570 people. SOURCE: PRESS TV