Austrian Airlines to resume flights to Iran in March

TEHRAN, Feb 16 (AFP): Austrian Airlines announced on Sunday it will resume flights to Iran in March after it stopped flying to the country early last year for what it said were commercial reasons.
The airline confirmed local media reports that flights to Tehran would resume from March 11, attributing the decision, in a statement on its website, to the "current stability" in the country.
Iran's Arman daily quoted the deputy head of the Civil Aviation Organisation, Mohammad Khoda Karami, as saying flights by Austrian Airlines "will be operated five times a week to Tehran".
The airline in its statement said it had ended flights to Tehran in January 2013 "for commercial reasons".
"These included the strong inflation of the Iranian currency, the rial, and the effects of the economic and political sanctions on the ground in Iran."
Iran has been slapped by international sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme which the West suspects of covering a nuclear weapons drive -- allegations strongly denied by Tehran.
The sanctions contributed to the nosedive last year of the Iranian rial, which however has begun to recover since the administration of relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani clinched a historic nuclear deal with major world powers in November.