German airline Lufthansa announced on Friday that it would resume flights from Frankfurt to Tehran from April 16.
Lufthansa had suspended flights in January 2020 after the Islamic Republic accidentally downed a Ukrainian jetliner amid an exchange of hostilities with U.S. forces in Iraqi soil.
The airline said it has since assessed security measures by Iran with national and international authorities. “The conditions for safe flight operations in Iranian airspace are currently in place,” it said in an emailed statement, Reuters reported.
In January 2020, however, the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approved that European airlines can return to parts of Iranian and Iraqi airspace. EASA announced, following an EU aviation security risk group meeting, that it was lifting temporary recommendations against overflying the two countries altogether. Lufthansa was among airlines that canceled flights over the affected airspace.
On January 3, 2020, a U.S. drone strike assassinated top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and in an act of retaliation, Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq on January 8. The Ukrainian airliner was accidentally shot down by Iran’s air defense as it was on high alert in the tense aftermath.
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