British Airways will operate a six-times weekly service during the summer before moving to daily flights towards the end of the year, beginning July 14.
British Airways’ Tehran flights will be operated by a four-class Boeing 777 aircraft and depart from Heathrow Airport Terminal 5.
British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has previously hinted at a recent conference in Dublin that the London-Tehran route would return:
“We are very interested in flying to Tehran and we are hopeful that it will form part of BA’s network in the very near future. We are actively looking at it as a destination.”
The move came a few weeks after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a lasting nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), came into force.
Based on the nuclear deal, reached in July 2015, all nuclear-related anti-Iran sanctions have been removed.
A British Airways spokeswoman said the company’s route network was regularly reviewed “to ensure that we operate to destinations with a strong demand from our customers”.
If the flights are introduced, it is thought that other Heathrow slots will be dropped to make way for the service, which was stopped in 2012.
British Airways head of network planning Neil Cottrell, said:
“Iran is a large and growing economy and Tehran is a brilliant business city so we are incredibly excited to be adding another gateway to the Middle East for our customers.
According to a British Airways spokesperson, the airline suspended flights in October 2012 when British Midland International (BMI) became part of British Airways and the route was “no longer commercially viable”.
British Airways has a long history of flying to the city and offered the first scheduled flights between London and Tehran in 1946.
Tehran is one of 14 new routes British Airways will be launching this year, which include San Jose, Costa Rica, San Jose, California and Lima in Peru.
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