An investigation by BBC News Arabic has analysed flight tracking data
and open source footage which shows how Iran's largest airline - Mahan
Air - continued to fly while government flight bans were in place, and
contributed to the spread of Covid-19 in the Middle East.
Mahan
Air ran hundreds of flights to and from Iran, Iraq, the United Arab
Emirates and Syria between late January and the end of March. All these
countries gave Mahan Air permission to land. And they did so while their
own bans on routine flights from Iran were in place.
Sources
within the airline told the BBC that dozens of Mahan Air’s cabin crew
were showing symptoms of Covid-19 and that when staff tried to raise
concerns about the airline’s management of the crisis and provision of
safety equipment, they were silenced.
Mahan Air is sanctioned by the US for its links to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-52537663/coronavirus-by-air-the-spread-of-covid-19-in-the-middle-east
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8287615/Iranian-airline-fuelled-Middle-Easts-coronavirus-crisis-continuing-flights-China.html