Imam Khomeini International Airport

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Imam Khomeini International Airport فرودگاه بین‌المللی امام خمینی Forudgāh-e beynalmellali-ye Imām Khomeini
IATA: IKA ICAO: OIIE IKA Location of airport in Iran
Summary
Airport type	Public
Operator	Iranian Airports Holding Company
Serves	Tehran
Location	Ahmadabad, Iran
Hub for	Iran Air Mahan Air Iran Asseman Airlines Qeshm Airlines Caspian Airlines
Elevation AMSL	3,305 ft / 1,007 m
Coordinates	35°24′58″N 051°09′08″E
Website	www.ikia.airport.ir
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 11L/29R 13,772 4,198 Asphalt 11R/29L Closed 13,940 4,249 Asphalt

Imam Khomeini International Airport (IATA: IKA, ICAO: OIIE) (Persian: فرودگاه بین‌المللی امام خمینی, Forudgāh-e beynalmellali-ye Imām Khomeini), also known with the acronym IKIA or IKA, is located in Ahmadabad, Iran. The airport is located about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of the city of Tehran, near the localities of Robat-Karim and Eslamshahr. 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 Imam Khomeini International Airport in honor of Ruhollah Khomeini.

History

Baggage Claim right side hall

Boeing 747-400 of Mahan Air boarding passengers at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport

IKA Terminal seen from Persian Gulf Freeway

The construction began before the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The original design was based on Dallas Love Field . 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.

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."

TAV officials, who had agreed to clear out for two weeks for the dispute to be settled, also stated that they believed the memorandum of understanding they signed with the Iranian government last year to operate the airport's Terminal 1 is still in effect.

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.

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). 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.

Operations

Transfer of flights from Mehrabad

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.

Instrument Landing System (ILS)

IKA is equipped with the ILS since August 2009. The system 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.

Certification

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.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Airlines	Destinations
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo
Air Arabia	Sharjah
Alitalia	Rome-Fiumicino
Ariana Afghan Airlines	Kabul
Ata Airlines	Tbilisi, Batumi
Atlasjet	Istanbul-Atatürk
Azerbaijan Airlines	Baku
Belavia	Minsk
Bulgarian Air Charter	Seasonal charter: Varna
Caspian Airlines	Najaf, Sulaimaniyah
China Southern Airlines	Urumqi
Corendon Airlines	Antalya
Emirates	Dubai
Etihad Airways	Abu Dhabi
Fly Georgia	Tbilisi
Freebird Airlines	Izmir
Iran Air	Amsterdam, Ankara, Baku, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Beijing-Capital, Beirut, Cologne/Bonn, Dubai, Frankfurt, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Hamburg, Istanbul-Atatürk, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, London-Heathrow, Milan-Malpensa, Mumbai, Paris-Orly, Rome-Fiumicino, Stockholm-Arlanda, Vienna
Iran Aseman Airlines	Dubai, Istanbul-Ataturk, Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen, Kabul, Stockholm-Arlanda, Yerevan
Iraqi Airways	Baghdad, Najaf
Jazeera Airways	Kuwait (begins 29 October 2013)
Kam Air	Kandahar
Kuwait Airways	Kuwait
Lufthansa	Frankfurt
Mahan Air	Almaty, Ankara, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Damascus, Dammam, Delhi, Dubai, Dusseldorf, Erbil, Guangzhou, Istanbul-Atatürk, Izmir, Kabul, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Moscow-Vnukovo, Phuket, Shanghai-Pudong, St Petersburg (resumes 15 September 2013) Seasonal charter: Larnaca, Najaf, Varna
Oman Air	Muscat
Pegasus Airlines	Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen
Qatar Airways	Doha
Qeshm Airlines	Najaf
Syrian Air	Damascus
Taban Air	Izmir, Najaf Seasonal: Kiev-Boryspil
Turkish Airlines	Ankara, Istanbul-Atatürk
UM Airlines	Kiev-Boryspil

Cargo

Airlines	Destinations
Emirates SkyCargo	Dubai
Iran Air Cargo	Dubai
Qatar Airways Cargo	Doha
Turkish Airlines Cargo	Istanbul-Ataturk

Cities with direct passenger flights from IKA

Ground transportation

See also: Transport in Iran

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 and scheduled to reach the airport in first quarter of 2011. 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

Construction and expansion

IKIA Phase 1 shy of Rls 3 trillion (US$335 million)

About 3 trillion rials (US$335 million) have been sought for completing Phase 1 of Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA), in the next Iranian year to March 2009, announced managing director of the State Airports Company, Asghar Ketabchi. According to a fax sent to Iran Daily by the company's Information Dissemination Department, if the sum is made available and the same amount is earmarked for the year to March 2010, the first phase of the airport would go into operation in the year to March 2009. He said that constructing the second runway, completing Customs Administrations' and a number of other buildings are among the projects for Phase 1 of IKIA. Presently the airport has the capacity to handle 6.5 million passengers per annum, he said and noted that 3 million people will use the airport by 19 March. Given the eight percent growth in flights, it is estimated that IKIA will have moved five million passengers by March 2009. The newly built Imam Khomeini International, the largest airport in Iran, sprawls over an area of 13,500 hectares. About 3.2 trillion rials (US$357 million) will be needed to promote the airport to a world-class level.

The French firm ADPI, subsidiary of the Aéroports de Paris Group has been commissioned for providing a master plan development study, with a second phase of development offering a 26.5 Million Annual Passengers throughput capacity.

Development phases

Completion part of phase one including cargo terminal and VIP terminal is currently under construction with Haj terminal in engineering phase and airport Hotel in bid to find investor which this latest one transferred to phase 2 package. Phases 2 & 3 of the airport have been designed to reach the airport capacity to 26.5 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. According to the fact that airport is quickly reaching its current capacity of 6.5 million per year, a bid to find investors for second phase that has been announced by airport officials. It has partially concluded by selecting Naja Bonyad Taavon (A semi governmental foundation) as the developer of most of phase 2 including a new 238,000 m2 passenger terminal with annual capacity of 20million,a southern runway, new parking with 2500 cars capacity and a 4star 250 rooms airport hotel with some of execution activities have already been started. This phase will cost USD2.2 billion from which USD700 million will be provided by Iranian government and the rest USD1.5 billion was the matter of bid which the winner Bonyad Taavon is committed to invest about USD1.2 billion of that and take at least 36months to finish its portion.,

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. 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.
• 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.

References

• "Monthly flight plan" (in Persian). Imam Khomenini International Airport official website. Archived from the original on July 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-16.
• Template:WAD

External links

• Official Website
• Template:WAD
• 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