British Airways resumes direct flights to Iran

London, Sep 1: British Airways will resume direct flights from London to Tehran starting from Thursday night after a gap of four years, the UK flag carrier has announced.

A British Airways (BA) Boeing 777 will take off at about 8.00 p.m. from London's Heathrow Airport bound for Tehran heralding six BA flights per week to the Iranian capital, the airlines said.

The relationship between Britain and Iran has improved in recent years, following the lifting of sanctions on Iran earlier this year and the reopening of the British embassy in Tehran in 2015, EFE news reported.

British Airways, which first started flights to Iran in 1946, terminated its thrice-weekly flights to Iran in October 2012, a year after the British embassy closed.

Diplomatic relations between London and Tehran were suspended after the embassy was attacked by protestors following sanctions imposed on Iran regarding its nuclear programme.

The embassy was reopened in 2015 to mark the nuclear deal reached then between Iran and the P5+1 major powers which comprised the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

IANS