Iran's national flag carrier, Iran Air, has suspended all flights to Germany where authorities are struggling to curb surging cases of a new coronavirus pandemic.
Iran Air said in a Friday statement that flights to three German destinations had been suspended until further notice after German health authorities announced new and tighter restrictions on arrivals.
Compared to other European countries, Germany has been relatively successful in containing the number of deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus pandemic, with latest figures showing that just more than 1,000 have died out of a total of 80,000 confirmed cases.
However, the Western European nation has seen a consistent surge in the number of infections over the past week mainly because of the massive number of tests carried out by the labs in the country.
Iran Air said passengers will receive full refunds on the cancelled flights to Frankfurt, Hamburg and Koln. It said the airline will negotiate with international carriers to help with the return of Iranian nationals stranded in Germany.
The Iranian airline has already cancelled most of its flights to Europe and destinations in the Middle East only because of the disease.
Germany announced plans to halt flights from Iran and China in mid-March. However, restrictions were tightened over the past week when the number of new infections in many parts of world nearly doubled.
Iran itself has been a hotspot of COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East with over 53,000 cases reported since February 19. Nearly 3,300 patients have died and around 18,000 people have recovered from the illness, according to figures provided by the Iranian health ministry on Friday.