Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport

Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA) فرودگاه بین‌المللی امام خمینی
IATA: IKA – ICAO: OIIE
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	Iranian Airports Holding Company
Operator	Iran Civil Aviation Organization
Serves	Tehran, Karaj, Iran
Location	Ahmadabad, Iran
Opened	8 May 2004
Hub for	Passenger Airlines Iran Air Iran Aseman Airlines Mahan Air Meraj Airlines Qeshm Air Taban Air Zagros Airlines Cargo Airlines Iran Air Cargo Pouya Cargo Air
Time zone	IRST (UTC+3:30)
• Summer (DST)	IRDT (UTC+04:30)
Elevation AMSL	3,305 ft / 1,007 m
Coordinates	35°24′58″N 051°09′08″E / 35.41611°N 51.15222°E / 35.41611; 51.15222
Website	ikia.airport.ir
Map
IKA Location within Iran
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 11L/29R 13,772 4,198 Asphalt 11R/29L Closed 13,940 4,249 Asphalt
Statistics (2015)
Aircraft Movements 50,423 22.3% Passengers 7,243,120 28.2% Cargo 135,192 tons 22.3%
Source: Iranian Airports Holding Company[1]

Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport^[2] (Persian: فرودگاه بین‌المللی امام خمینی‎‎) (IATA: IKA, ICAO: OIIE), also known as Tehran-IKIA or IKIA, is the main international airport of Iran, located 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of the city of Tehran, near the localities of Robat-Karim and Eslamshahr, on a 13,500-hectare (135 km²) site. It was designed to replace Mehrabad International Airport, which is in the west of the city, now inside the city boundaries. The airport was originally designated as Ahmadabad but was later renamed to "Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport". It is capable of handling wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 super heavy aircraft.

The airport, operated by the Iranian Airports Holding Company, is the home base of Iran Air, Meraj Airlines, Mahan Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Qeshm Airlines, Taban Air, and Zagros Airlines. As of August 2014, Imam Khomeini International Airport serves more than 40 airlines operating over 850 of weekly flights connecting Tehran to cities in over 30 countries and territories worldwide.

History

Terminal building

Baggage claim area

Construction and inauguration

The construction began before the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The original designers were TAMS, a consortium of US designers. A local joint venture was formed and was called TAMS-AFFA, Aziz FarmanFarmaian and Associates, the firm created by Abdol-Aziz Mirza Farmanfarmaian, to carry out the full design and supervision of construction.

After the Iranian Revolution, the project was abandoned until the government of Iran decided to design and build the airport using local know-how. The French firm ADP was selected to head the local designers and engineering firms. A turnkey design and build contract was awarded to a local general contractor company, Kayson, to carry out and manage the construction. After two years this contract was abandoned and was awarded to a Bonyad, the Mostazafan & Janbazan (M&J Foundation), a public cartel.^[3]

After construction of the main terminal was finished by M&J Foundation, the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization decided to turn the management of operations along with the construction of the second terminal to the TAV (Tepe-Akfen-Vie) consortium of two Turkish (Tepe and Akfen) and an Austrian (Vie) companies.

The original opening was scheduled for 11 February 2004, the onset of the auspicious "Ten-Day Dawn" (1–11 February) celebrations, marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

There were numerous issues surrounding the construction of the airport including the supply of fuel to the new airport, and a delay in signing a deal with the Iranian oil ministry forced a delay in the opening of the airport until 8 May 2004.

Just prior to the opening on 8 May, two local airlines refused to switch to the new airport. Economic Hayat-e No daily quoted Ali Abedzadeh, director of semi-privately-owned Iran Aseman Airlines, as saying "We are not flying from an airport run by foreigners." TAV officials were ordered to withdraw their personnel and equipment from the airport on 7 May 2004, and operations were handed over to Iran Air.

"I think they (the armed forces) were given false reports that the Turks were still on the site, while they had all evacuated the airport by Friday," airport manager Hossein Pirouzi said. However, on 8 May, a few hours after the opening of airport, the Revolutionary Guards of the Iranian Armed Forces closed it, citing security fears over the use of foreigners in the running of the airport. Only one Emirates flight from Dubai was allowed to land. The second flight from Dubai, which was an Iran Air flight, was forced to land in Isfahan International Airport, because the Mehrabad Airport did not allow it to land there after the Imam Khomeini airport was closed by the armed forces. The rest of the flights were diverted to Mehrabad.

On 11 May, in a meeting of the Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, the Turkish expressed uneasiness about the actions of the Iranian armed forces. The airport reopened on 13 May, as deputy head of Iran's Joint Chiefs of staff Brigadier-General Alireza Afshar stated "because foreign companies will no longer be in charge of the airport's operation, security obstacles are removed."

In April 2005 the $350 million Imam Khomeini International Airport was reopened under the management of a consortium of four local airlines—Mahan Air, Aseman, Caspian Airlines and Kish Air—although no formal contract appeared to have been awarded. Soon later management of the airport has been transferred to the Iranian Airports Holding Company which in behalf of Iranian Ministry of Roads and Transportation is in charge of operating all civil and governmental Iranian airports except some belongs to special organizations like Oil ministry or Armed Forces.^[4]

Further complicating matters, on 29 April 2005, the United Kingdom and Canada warned its citizens against using the airport due to alleged safety concerns concerning the runway, which has been claimed to have been built over ancient qanats (subterranean waterways).^[5][6] Iranian officials countered these claims by stating that there are no safety issues and that the International Civil Aviation Organization had inspected and approved the airport.

On 26 October 2007, it was announced that as of 28 October 2007 at midnight, all international flights except those bound to and from Damascus, Jeddah and Medina were transferred to the Imam Khomeini International Airport and the IKA became Tehran's primary international airport. All flights have now been moved to IKA except domestic flights and flights to Saudi Arabia for Hajj and Umrah.^[7]

Development since 2009

AIRPORTS IN IRAN

The French firm ADPI, subsidiary of the Aéroports de Paris Group has completed preparation of a master plan development study, with a second and third phase of development offering total of 32 and 50 million annual passengers throughput capacity.

As remaining parts of phase one constructing of the second runway and completion of the Customs Administrations' finished by 2013.The cargo terminal and CIP terminal were also inaugurated in 2013 and 2014 with Haj terminal named SALAM terminal under construction with the capacity of 6 million passengers in year and is to be completed by June 2016.Two 4star and 5 star airport Hotels totaling 350rooms opened on April 2015 by a joint venture of Iranian/French companies under Ibis and Novotel chain brands offering world class services. Phases 2 & 3 of the airport have been designed to extend the airport capacity to 32 million and 50 million passengers annually with another possible phase 4 to reaching 90 million per year. Study and design for phase 4 will be done as soon as construction of phase 3 starts. As expected the airport quickly reached its current capacity of 6.5 million per year in 2014,so a bid to find investors for second phase that had been announced by airport officials which is thought to get to the result much faster by growing interest of western investors after relieving Iran from sanctions on January 2016 . It will includes a new 238,000 m² passenger terminal with annual capacity of 20 million named Iran Shahr, a southern runway, third parking with 2500 cars capacity .This phase will cost USD2.2 billion from which USD700 million will be provided by Iranian government and the rest USD1.5 billion is the matter of bid. The airport is equipped with a control tower simulator designed by Iranian knowledge base firm FARAZ GROUP in 2014 for training of ATC staff which is the first time in Iran that an airport has this kind of simulator after Iranian revolution. The first international training course was held in IKA by using this modern simulator for 53 Syrian air traffic controllers by November 2014.

Many European airlines including Air France, British Airways, Eurowings and Lufthansa have recently announced resuming or increasing their flights and also opening new routes to Tehran after sanctions lifted in mid January 2016.^[8][9]

Operations

Imam Khomeini Airport has 1 passenger terminal, with a total annual handling capacity of 6.5 million passengers and 120,000 tonnes of cargo. Terminal 16, the Pilgrimage Terminal, is currently under construction. In 2013, the airport handled 45.826 million passengers, a 20% increase over the previous year. This made it the eleventh busiest airport by international passenger traffic in the Middle East. In addition to being an important passenger hub, the airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the region, handling 98,904 tonnes of cargo in 2013. The total number of commercial aircraft movements was 36,827 in 2013.^[10]

IKA is equipped with the ILS CAT II since August 2009. The second ILS system for serving other runway was purchased seven years ago but the selling firm refused to set it up due to sanctions against Iran. The ILS was installed by Iranian experts but were not operating correctly and switched off.^[11]

IKA has obtained the international certificate of Integrated Management System (IMS). IMS includes OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001: 2004 and ISO 9001, which are issued for safety and professional hygiene, protecting the environment and the quality of management respectively.^[12] Imam Khomeini International Airport, is also the first busiest international airport in Iran, achieved CAO Airport Certificate on June 10, 2013.

Airside hotels

For the first time since the 1979 revolution international hotels are opening outlets in the country, with the French chains Novotel and Ibis inaugurating air side facilities at Imam Khomeini Airport in October 2015.^[13]

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Cargo

Ground transportation

Imam Khomeini Airport is accessible from Tehran by car, taxi and bus via the Tehran-Qom Freeway. An airport access road connects the freeway to the airport terminal, continuing to serve Robat-Karim via an interchange with Saidi Highway. An extension to the southern part of Line 1 of Tehran Metro for IKA airport is currently under construction. There is also plan to have Line 3 of the Tehran Metro to reach its southern terminus at IKA in future.

• Freeway 5
• Freeway 7
• Road 65
• Road 71

Accidents and incidents

• On 15 December 2007, an Airbus A330-200 belonging to KLM arriving from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol collided with a Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 bound for Frankfurt International Airport. The accident, which took place at 3:00 IRST, caused no casualties but led to the cancellation of the Lufthansa flight.^[24] The aircraft was coming to a stop in front of a passenger boarding bridge when it collided with the wing of the Lufthansa Airbus A340 that was taxiing towards the runway. It was reported that the planes did not sustain severe damage.^[24]
• On 4 January 2008, an Iran Air Boeing 747-100B had three of its engines catch fire whilst landing at Imam Khomeini Airport. Heavy snowfall managed to extinguish the fires and the airplane returned to service two days after the incident.
• On 15 July 2009, Caspian Airlines Flight 7908, a Tupolev Tu-154 bound for Yerevan, Armenia crashed into a field in the village of Farsiyan in Qazvin province (north-western Iran), 16 minutes after take-off from Imam Khomeini Airport. All 168 passengers and crew were killed.^[25]

See also

• Iran Civil Aviation Organization
• Transport in Iran
• List of airports in Iran
• List of the busiest airports in Iran
• List of airlines of Iran

References

• "Monthly flight plan" (in Persian). Imam Khomenini International Airport official website. Archived from the original on 30 July 2007. Retrieved 16 January 2007. 
• Airport information for OIIE at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.Source: DAFIF.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Imam Khomeini International Airport.

• Official website
• Airport information for OIIE at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.Source: DAFIF.
• Airport information for OIIE at Great Circle Mapper. Source: DAFIF (effective October 2006).
• Current weather for OIIE at NOAA/NWS
• Accident history for IKA at Aviation Safety Network

Airports in Iran Major international Tehran-Imam Khomeini Minor international Abadan Ahwaz Ardabil Bandar Abbas Birjand Bushehr Isfahan Kermanshah Kish Lamerd Larestan Mashhad Persian Gulf Rasht Qeshm Qom (under construction) Shahrekord Shiraz Tabriz Tehran-Mehrabad Urmia Yazd Zahedan Domestic Bam Bandar Lengeh Bojnord Dasht-e Naz Dezful Gorgan Hamadan Ilam Jiroft Kerman Khorramabad Khoy Mahshahr Noshahr Parsabad Rafsanjan Ramsar Sabzevar Sahand Sanandaj Sirjan Yasuj Zabol Zanjan Military Doshan Tappeh Hesa Konarak Omidiyeh Unscheduled Arak Fasa Kalaleh Qazvin