Mahan Air
Iran · MAHAN AIR · Active
Airline Identity
History
Mahan Air was established in 1991 and began commercial operations in June 1992 as Iran's first privately owned airline, growing over the following decades into one of the country's largest carriers. It is owned by the Mahan Air Charitable and Investment Trust (Bonyad Mahan Al-Movahedin), a foundation with reported links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a connection that has made the airline a recurring target of Western sanctions since 2011. Barred from buying new Western aircraft, Mahan Air has kept an unusually old widebody fleet flying through third-party leasing, parts-sourcing and aircraft-acquisition schemes that Western governments say circumvent export-control and sanctions regimes, including the covert 2023–2024 acquisition of several used Boeing 777-200ERs.
Current Operations
Mahan Air remains active as of 2026 and is one of Iran's largest airlines, operating an aging widebody-heavy fleet that includes Airbus A340s, A310s and A300s alongside Boeing 747s, plus a small number of Boeing 777-200ERs acquired through opaque, sanctions-evading transactions involving front companies and third-country registrations. The airline serves roughly 45 destinations in about 10 countries, combining domestic Iranian trunk routes from Tehran with international services across the Middle East, Central and East Asia. Mahan Air operates under long-standing international sanctions: the U.S. Treasury designated it in 2011 for providing support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, several European countries (including Germany, France, Italy and Spain) barred it from their airspace or airports around 2019–2020, and the European Union sanctioned the airline in October 2024 over allegations it helped supply drones and missile components to Russia. It has no ties to any global airline alliance and, due to sanctions, cannot buy new Western-built aircraft or parts through normal commercial channels.
Last verified 2026-09-02· Source: airline public disclosures, company press releases & aviation-industry reporting.