Iran Air
flag carrier airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran Air, officially known as The Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: هواپیمایی جمهوری اسلامی ایران, romanized: Havâpeymâyi-ye Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Irân), and previously as The National Airline of Iran (هواپیمایی ملی ایران, Havâpeymâyi-ye Melli-ye Irân), is the flag carrier of Iran, which is headquartered at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. As of 2024, it operates scheduled services to 72 destinations in Asia and Europe. Iran Air's main bases are Imam Khomeini International Airport and Mehrabad International Airport, both serving Tehran, the capital of Iran. Domestically, Iran Air is commonly known as "Homa" (هما), which is the name of a mythical Persian phoenix or griffin, and also the acronym of Iran National Airlines in the Persian language. The airline's cargo division, Iran Air Cargo, operates scheduled services internationally using one cargo aircraft.
The airline has been sanctioned in 2024 by the United States and the European Union for its role in the provision of Iranian weaponry to Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
History
Early years
Iranian Airways was founded in May 1944 by Reza Afshar and Gholam Ebtehaj. Post-war, its first passenger flight was from Tehran to Mashhad, followed by a Tehran-Esfahan-Shiraz-Bushehr-Abadan-Ahwaz service. In 1946 the airline established service to Cairo, Baghdad, and Tel Aviv, and in April 1947, to Paris. Between 1945 and 1962, the airline became a major domestic carrier, also operating some international flights to Europe each week.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Iran Air” as flag carrier airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as flag carrier airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q461631. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1944, 1946 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iran Air” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.