Flights between Iran and Turkey are suspended until November 1 to help curb the new wave of coronavirus while repatriation flights will operate to bring Iranian citizens home, Touraj Dehqani Zanganeh, the head of Iran Civil Aviation Organization, said.
This came as the Turkey's Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued new instructions based on which all flights between Iran and Turkey were called off since October 4.
“Turkish Airlines and one of Iranian airline are allowed to operate one flight per day to return their citizens home,” Dehqani Zanganeh said.
Turkey has also cancelled flights to Iraq and Afghanistan, but failed to provide a date for resumption of flights.
This comes as Qatar Airways continues to operate Tehran-Doha-Istanbul and Tehran-Doha-Belgrade-Istanbul flights. Normally, plane tickets get more expensive when fewer airlines offer services so Qatar Airways fares are bound to go up soon.
Turkey had cancelled resumption of flights to and from Iran several times before, following the outbreak of the new coronavirus after initially announcing flight dates.
Iran’s flag carrier airline, Iran Air, had resumed flights to Istanbul since September 25.