— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on August 24, 2018, Friday.
Air France and British airline are not the first one who decided to stop airlines to Iran Tehran.
KLM announced it would stop flying to Tehran July this year. Spokesman from Air France said flights between Paris and Tehran will be grounded from September 18 amid bad business performance. Similarly, British airline said in a note that the last flight between London and Tehran is between 22 and 23 Sep amid unstable business performance.
As an old saying goes: Riverside reads prophet. That is to say, market demand of international flights to targeting destination mirrors the relations between this destination and international investment and cooperation to some extent. Currently, the airlines' grounding strategy is a signal to the market that Iran is facing a drop in Tehran targeted flights demand caused by a business decline from overseas multinational companies.
Air France also said, performance of flights between Paris and Tehran had been falling for months. When US withdrew from Iran Deal that was reached by multi-parties in 2015 on 8 May this year and threated multinational companies that if they continue to cooperate with Iran, they will face secondary sanctions, many foreign companies had to scale down or abandon Iran business because of policy risk.
Recently, many multinational giants have get affected, and announced to withdraw from Iran market, on Monday, 20 Aug, Iran's oil minister confirmed U.S. oil French oil and gas giant Total officially withdrew from natural gas program in South pars, Iran, and that means the $5 billion project is dead. Maersk, a German energy firm, and Denmark's Thom, one of the biggest oil carriers, taking turns to announce that they will stop working with Iran
At the industry front, Siemens said in May this year, they had to cancel all new deals in Iran, because of US sanctions. In July, Daimler also said it had abandoned the expansion plan in Iran, and Daimler planned to cooperate with BOEING, AIRBUS, TOTAL and SEIMENS to improve Iran industrial infrastructure, scaling up its domestic consumption demand.
Those companies' expansion plans were all disrupted by the re-imposed sanctions from US. And some US officials have confirmed that there are nearly 100 multinational companies had announced to withdraw from Iran market. And the blow to Iran may soon be reflected in the Iranian economy. On 7 this month, US re-took the 1st round sanction against Iran, that is the sanction about foreign exchange, precious metal, graphite, aluminum, steel, industrial software, automotive and civil aviation. The second round sanction will kick off on 5 Nov, targeting the backbone of the Iran's economy "ENERGY" , shipping and business contact between Iran and foreign financial institutions. Some analysts believe US sanction will destroy Iran's open-up plan, hurting its economy growth potential.