Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport (IATA:IKA,ICAO:OIIE) (Persian:فرودگاه بینالمللی امام خمینی) is theinternational airport ofTehran, the capital of Iran. It is located 2 kilometers (1 mi) ofVahnabad and 35 kilometres (22 miles) southwest of Tehran and is named forRuhollah Khomeini (1900–1989), Iran's first supreme leader. The airport is operated by Imam Khomeini Airport City Company. It covers 13,400 hectares (33,000 acres) and has two terminals and two runways. All international flights into Tehran are served by the airport, and all domestic flights land atMehrabad Airport. Imam Khomeini Airport is a hub for multiple airlines. As of the fiscal year ending on 20 March 2019, it ranked third in terms of passenger traffic in Iran.
The airport was conceived before the 1979Iranian Revolution, as Mehrabad Airport was becoming congested. It was scheduled to open in May 2004 under the management ofTepe-Akfen-Vie (TAV), a Turkish-Austrian consortium. However, theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shut it down soon after the first plane landed, citing security fears over allowing foreigners to run the airport.Conservatives inparliament said that TAV had business ties with Iran's enemy,Israel.[citation needed] The company stated it had no relationship with the country. The airport reopened in April 2005 with four Iranian carriers in charge of operations. In 2019, a second terminal was completed.
The airport city is located at the end ofRobat Karim andRay counties inTehran province and underVahnabad Rural District (formerly a part of it). During the construction of this airport, the southern village of Nodeh was integrated into the airport as a whole from the entire Vahnabad Rural District.[1]
A large part of the land north of the airport (now under the northern belt of the airport city) consists of the land donated by local residents Hasan Latifiyan and his wife Zahra Abdullahi for the construction and expansion of the airport (before the creation of the airport city). Part of the CNS equipment of the airport city, such as the special ILS approach and the right runway 29 (29R) as the main landing strip for foreign planes and the side taxiway, are located in this area.[1]
The Iranian government decided prior to the 1979Iranian Revolution to build a new airport forTehran. The city was then the centre of the Middle East, and air traffic was increasing quickly at the existingMehrabad Airport.[2] The new airport was initially called Tehran orAryamehr International Airport, and the original designers were the American company Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton and the Iranian firm Farman-Farmayan.[2][3][4] In 1977, construction began 35 kilometres (22 mi) southwest of Tehran. The revolution and theIran–Iraq War caused delays, and work on the runway recommenced in 1989. Due to the economic impact of the war and Iran's isolation in the international community, PresidentAkbar Rafsanjani focused on other endeavours in the early 1990s.[2] In 1995, the French firmAéroports de Paris was selected as the primary consultant, and construction of the terminal, whichPaul Andreu had redesigned, started.[2][3] By 2000, the airport had been renamed afterRuhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.[2]
In 2003,Tepe-Akfen-Vie (TAV), a Turkish-Austrian consortium, reached an agreement with the reformist administration ofMohammad Khatami to operate the terminal and construct a second one.[5][6] It made an initial investment ofUS$15million in the project.[6] The deal symbolised a shift away from the viewpoint in the government that foreign investment was a form ofimperialism.[7] President Khatami inaugurated the airport on 1 February 2004 during celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the revolution.[8] The plan was for it to handle all international flights to Tehran.[9] Officials wanted the airport to represent Iran's opening to the international community and hoped it would become the largest in the Middle East.[2][7] TheEconomist Intelligence Unit commented that theDubai airport already served as ahub in the region and that the new airport was unlikely to overcome existing barriers to tourism such as the government's rigid social rules.[9]
Some Iranians including the directors of two airlines objected to the deal with TAV. Their primary concern was that Turkey had links to Iran's foe Israel.[10] On 7 May 2004, the military forced TAV's staff to leave the premises with their equipment and granted management of the facility toIran Air.[5] The following day, anEmirates flight from Dubai became the first to land. Hours later, however, theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closed the airport by driving tanks onto the runway.[7][11] It threatened to useanti-aircraft fire against the second incoming flight, which fighter jets escorted to Isfahan.[10][11] The rest of the flights were diverted to Mehrabad.[10] The guards said it was unsafe and an affront to national dignity for foreigners to be in charge of the largest airport in Iran.[7][12] Conservatives in parliament stated that the consortium had done business with Israel. TAV responded that it had no association with the country.[6]
Later that year, the conservative-dominated parliament impeached Khatami's minister of transportation,Ahmad Khorram, partly because of the TAV contract.[13] It also granted itself the right to veto the deal and another one that the government had signed with a Turkish firm. The agreement with TAV was ultimately annulled.[14] The incident soured relations between Iran and Turkey.[15] According toRay Takeyh, a fellow at theCouncil on Foreign Relations, the likely reason for the closure was that "the local interest, particularly Revolutionary Guards, desired a greater share of the profits".[16]The Guardian andThe Washington Post made similar comments.[7][17] The latter also described the airport as a symbol of the divide between those Iranians who wanted to engage more with the world and those who did not.[7]
On 30 April 2005, the $350 million Imam Khomeini Airport reopened under the management of a consortium of four Iranian airlines—Caspian Airlines,Iran Aseman Airlines,Kish Air andMahan Air.[18][16] No ceremony was held to mark the occasion due to persistent tensions. The first arrival was an Iran Air flight from Dubai.[18] In the beginning, the airport only had flights to a few Middle Eastern countries.[16] By March 2008, all international flights excluding those for theHajj andUmrah had relocated from Mehrabad to Imam Khomeini Airport.[19] The airport also signed an agreement in 2016 with Milan-basedItalian firmSEA [it] to manage the airport's handling activities.[20]
Air France,Alitalia,British Airways andKLM resumed service to Tehran in 2016 following theIran nuclear deal.[21]Thai Airways commenced service to Iran as well. All five carriers suspended their flights two years later, stating that they were not financially viable.[22][23] Analysts said the main reason for the airlines' decisions was that the United Stateshad exited the nuclear agreement and decided to reinstate sanctions on Iran.[22] In June 2019, PresidentHassan Rouhani inaugurated the Salaam International Terminal.[24]
The airport occupies 13,400 hectares (33,000 acres) and is operated by Imam Khomeini Airport City Company, which is part of theMinistry of Roads and Urban Development.[18][25] It has two terminals: Terminal 1 and the Salaam International Terminal.[24] Terminal 1 is shaped like an arc whose ends merge into the desert horizon.[2] A third terminal called Iranshahr is in the planning phase.[26] There are two runways:[27]
11L/29R: 4,198 by 45 metres (13,773 ft × 148 ft)
11R/29L: 4,092 by 45 metres (13,425 ft × 148 ft)
The first 450 metres (1,480 ft) of 11L/29R are made of concrete, the rest of asphalt. 11R/29L is entirely made of asphalt.[27] Aninstrument landing system was installed in August 2009.[28]
In 2015, French corporationAccorHotels opened aNovotel and anIbis hotel on the airport premises, marking the entry of the first international hotel chain into the Iranian market since the 1979 revolution. The company was motivated by theJoint Comprehensive Plan of Action.[29][30] Rexan International Airport Hotels has since taken over management of the hotels and renamed them Rexan and Remis, respectively.[31]
Most of the airlines that fly into Imam Khomeini Airport are based in Turkey and the Middle East. The airport is served by two Western airlines,Lufthansa andAustrian Airlines.[32] It is a hub forIran Air,Iran Aseman Airlines,Mahan Air andMeraj Airlines.[33] Imam Khomeini Airport receives all international flights to Tehran, whileMehrabad Airport caters to domestic traffic.[34] There are flights to several cities in theMiddle East and the rest ofAsia such asDamascus,Guangzhou andMumbai. Tehran is also linked to destinations inEurope likeFrankfurt andMoscow.[35] In the fiscal year ending on 20 March 2019, the airport handled 7.27 million passengers, making it the third busiest in Iran. It received 142,000 tonnes of cargo, and the number of aircraft movements was 47,000.[36]
Imam Khomeini International Airport is accessible from Tehran via theTehran–Qom andTehran–Saveh freeways.[109] It is also served by astation on Line 1 of theTehran Metro, which opened in August 2017.[110]
^ab"The Introduce of Imam Khomeini International Airport (OIIK)".Aviation Telecommunications Engineering.29. Iranian Airport and Air Navigation Company, Mehrabad International Airport Zone, Meraj Blvd., Tehran, Iran: Civil Aviation Technology Association, ATE Association.
^abcdefgDinmore, Guy (12 July 2000). "Tehran counts on airport to turn chapter in history".Financial Times.ProQuest248934220.
^ab"New Tehran airport gears up for opening".MEED Middle East Economic Digest.45 (50): 17. 14 December 2001.GaleA81478237.
^Stroud, John (1980).Airports of the World. London: Putnam. pp. 172–174.ISBN9780370300375.
^abcChampion, Marc (8 February 2005). "Tougher Sell: Iran, Flush With Oil Cash, Seems To Cool to Foreign Investments".The Wall Street Journal.ProQuest398971134.
^"Летим из Грозного в Тегеран!".www.vaynahavia.com. Международный аэропорт Грозный (Северный) им. Первого Президента ЧР, Героя России А.А. Кадырова. Retrieved9 June 2024.
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