Hi all,
This is one of my retro trip reports that I wanted to share here from my trip from Tehran to London with Iran Air back in August 2009.
To see Tehran’s airport recent pictures you can visit my Trip report from Tehran to Kuwait City back in January 2015 at the link below:
Tehran to Kuwait- Kuwait Airways: http://flight-report.com/en/report-9383.html
The cover pic is by one of the Persian spotters in Iran - Mehrdad Watson- and I just love this pic with Iran Air's beautiful Homa Bird livery
First I'm including some retro pictures of Tehran airport from back in 2009 and you can see BMI and KLM that used to serve Tehran too:
Iran Air Crew
by Vinay
Some pictures from Tehran Airport's Website
by Vinay-Dullahbank
Now back to my trip report. The quality of pictures are not that great but it’s not that bad neither :)
We arrived at the airport around 5:30 AM, the check in hall at IKA:
Passport Control
After the Passport Control looking towards passport control
Iran Air Crew
An observation area
This central food court has a restaurant and coffee shop
And some shops selling Persian handicrafts and souvenirs
Again some more pix of people passing the passport control
More crew
Going down to lounges area and another observation area
Going Back up
Walking towards gate, you have to pass another security check before going to the gates
Although the gate bridge was empty, our aircraft had been parked away and we were bussed to the plane
Amazing views of apron with very nice aircrafts
This is our plane, such a beauty
Taxing
Ready for take off
The whole terminal is visible here
You can't see Tehran when you take off as the city is far
About an hour later, the breakfast service started
Breakfast- The main Iranian breakfast is cheese with walnuts and bread, jams are very popular too but cheese and bread and walnut are more popular. Hot tea and coffee was also being served as well
I love this refreshing tissue and I still have it and it looks as new as the first day. Pretty much I love anything with Iran Air's logo on it. IMO, Iran Air has one of the nicest liveries and I love the Homa Bird on it.
This is the Homa Bird that is painted on Iran Air's Tail, It's a legendary lucky bird and as you can see it's a statue in the most historic site of Iran, the Persepolis palace dating back to more than 2500 years ago near the city of Shiraz, This is where Persian empire was established and this palace was used by those kings.
Around 2 hours prior to landing the lunch was served.
Such an amazing and tasty dish of rice with steak like beef kabob pieces, very generous portion and very appetizing, with a tuna salad and a piece of cake along with cold drinks and bread
In Iran Air ladies are not supposed to remove their veil (scarf) but these Iranian ladies and many others did anyways, as people of Iran try to protest the enforced dress code by the government as much as they can
Approaching London- like all others we had to circle around London couple of times before landing
Passing over Canary Wharf- very nice views
Heathrow- Parked next to MEA and TK- both in older version of their liveries
A very cool view of our plane- such a great and fun flight
London - Going to passport control
Hope you enjoyed this FR :)
Great FR on a very beautiful and uncommon aircraft nowadays!
It looks like you had an overall positive experience.
Thanks.
Thank you oriol. Im glad you liked the FR. Yes, it was a very nice flight with very good service :)
Thanks indeed for is very complete and unusual report.
Long before the birth of this site, you already had all the codes to perform a nice report! I agree with you, the livery is very nice with the homa bird. I did not know the symbol, thanks cor sharing
Thanks so much Alcam. I'm glad you liked the FR. I had originally posted it on airliners.net back in 2010 and thought I'd add it here on this great site as well :)
Thank you so much for this interesting gem of a report with wonderful spotting throughout.
I would love to fly IR one of these days because it reminds me of how airlines used to be and this timeless quality has remained untouched. It's amazing to see how well kept their Boeing fleet are despite the embargo that Iran has experienced for so long. If anything, this is only an example that attests to the resourcefulness of the people in the face of adversity. The homa bird is such an iconic symbol.
I see that a lot of men in uniforms do not wear a tie. Is that a symbolic gesture against corrupt Westernization? Yet it seems that jeans are popular.
Catering looks great and of course you can't go wrong with steak and delicious rice for lunch. It puts to shame what other more modern carriers serve in the back on transatlantic flights (with the exception of TK and KL of course). ;)
Thanks so much Jetsetpanda. Yes, IR has been preserving their planes well and I hope the sanctions be lifted soon on them.
In Iran, men in the government jobs or public sectors, Iran Air falls under that,are not allowed to wear ties and if they do they get fired. But men wear them in private firms or in parties or weddings. The government is struggling to enforce the dress code over people such as scarf and overcoat that is required for women in public places, but in some places you have no choice but to play along with the government.
Thanks so much for sharing this very unique retro report! Reports on Iran Air are kind of rare. The service seems great with two full meals. The cabin is old school, but older seats are usually more comfortable anyway. Great shots of London on arrival--that's one of the advantages of circling to land at LHR. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much Kevin, yes the service was great. The landing views in London are very nice indeed so it's worth the extra time :)
I can't believe I missed this wonderful report!
Everything males me dreaming. The country (Iran), the airline, the aircraft,... Everything! I just love less common countries and airlines!
Well done man! Thanks! :D
Thanks so much Wingslover. I'm glad you enjoyed the report :)
Thanks for such a lovely detailed report. I can't wait to fly IranAir ! My initials are their 2 letter code IR !
Thanks very much, I'm very glad you enjoyed the FR.Very cool about the initials :)
ain't it just ?!