Saudia has publicly distanced itself from a set of five Boeing 777-200 aircraft that have reportedly surfaced in Iran, denying any ongoing link to jets it says it sold and handed off more than two years ago.
In a statement responding to the reports, the Saudi flag carrier said the five widebodies were sold on June 7, 2023, to a company registered outside Saudi Arabia, and that the transaction was completed in line with accepted commercial and legal procedures. "Since the completion of the sale, Saudia has had no operational or commercial relationship with the aircraft," the airline said.
The clarification follows reporting that the former Saudia 777s have ended up in the hands of Mahan Air, the privately owned Iranian carrier that has been under U.S. sanctions for years. According to Defense Security Asia, the five aircraft are now either inside Iran or somewhere in the delivery pipeline bound for Mahan, with two of the 777s said to have been spotted at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, where they are expected to be refurbished.
Crucially, the available reporting does not show a direct sale from Saudi Arabia to Iran, or between the two countries' airlines. Instead, it points to the jets changing hands through intermediaries and secondary-market channels β the kind of layered ownership trail that has repeatedly allowed sanctioned operators to acquire Western-built aircraft despite export restrictions.
For Saudia, the distinction matters. The carrier's position is that its responsibility ended at the point of sale in 2023, when the aircraft were transferred to a buyer outside the Kingdom. What a subsequent owner chose to do with the jets, the airline argues, falls outside its control and its commercial relationships.
The Boeing 777-200 is a long-range widebody that first entered service in the mid-1990s, and early-build examples are now reaching the stage of their lives where they are commonly retired from major fleets and sold on. That secondary market is largely legitimate, but it is also where the ownership of individual airframes can become difficult to track once aircraft pass through leasing companies, brokers and holding entities.
Mahan Air has long been a focus of sanctions enforcement, and the alleged appearance of additional widebodies in Iran is likely to draw scrutiny from regulators and export-control authorities. Refurbishing and returning older 777s to service would give a sanctioned carrier access to additional long-haul capacity at a time when Iranian airlines face severe constraints on sourcing new aircraft and spare parts.
For now, the reports remain unconfirmed by Boeing or by U.S. authorities, and Saudia's statement is the clearest official response from any of the parties named so far. The airline's message is unambiguous: whatever the current whereabouts of the five jets, it says it has had nothing to do with them since June 2023.
Sources: Simple Flying, Paddle Your Own Kanoo. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Elena Vargas.
Comments
Loading commentsβ¦