TEHRAN, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Association of Iranian Airlines on Saturday called for government support to the struggling Iranian airlines, which have suffered huge loss from the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Almost 90 percent of Iranian flights were canceled during the Iranian new year holidays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing huge loss to the Iranian airliners, said Maghsoud Assadi Samani, head of the Association of Iranian Airlines.
He cited that three Iranian airlines completely grounded their planes during the peak travel season of Nowruz, or the Iranian new year. The loss for the airlines amounted to nearly 190 million U.S. dollars because of flight cancellations during the Nowruz holidays.
Growing restrictions on flights and extremely low demand for air travels have led to a major recession in the Iranian aviation sector, Samani was quoted by state TV as saying.
"If the situation continues like this, airlines would have no option but to lay off workers," he said, urging the government to provide the airlines and other companies across the sector with low-interest loans to save them from recession.
A large number of planes have been moved to parking places where Iran's civil aviation authority charges high fees for storage, he noted.
A waiver on parking charges could help the airlines harmed by the coronavirus pandemic, said Samani.
Iran's Health Ministry announced Saturday that a total of 35,408 people have been infected with the virus, of whom 2,517 have died.
