Iran Air's First Female Chief Executive Takes The Helm

Iran Air’s first new Airbus A330-200, delivered in March 2017 in the first stage of a wide-ranging overhaul of its fleet.
(Photo: P Masclet / Master Films / Airbus)

The first woman to serve as chief executive of Iran’s national airline, Iran Air, officially took over at a ceremony in Tehran on July 16.

Farzaneh Sharafbafi had been appointed to the job in a decree issued by Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi on July 11. She replaces Farhad Parvaresh who was appointed Iran’s permanent representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in May.

The 44-year old Sharafbafi, who is reportedly the first Iranian woman to hold a PhD in aerospace, takes over at a critical time for the airline. The country’s flag carrier is rebuilding its fleet after years of having to make do and mend with an aging collection of planes during the years of international sanctions.

Since most of the trade barriers were lifted in January 2016, the airline has been on a spending spree, placing orders for 220 new aircraft from Airbus, Boeing and ATR, as part of a multi-billion dollar revamp. Some new Airbus and ATR aircraft have already been put into service, but the first deliveries from Boeing are taking longer to arrive.

According to local media reports in Iran, Sharafbafi has been tasked with restructuring the airline so that it is competitive both regionally and globally. Among her other priorities is to upgrade the safety record of the airline and providing more jobs opportunities for women.

Sharafbafi was previously a member of Iran Air's board of directors, heading up the airline’s research department. She gained her PhD from Sharif University of Technology, the country’s top-ranked higher education institution, and has also taught at Amir Kabir University of Technology and Shahid Sattari University of Aeronautical Engineering.

Sharafbafi is not the first CEO of an airline in the Middle East. Syrian Air is led by Ghaida Abdullatif and Rasha Al-Roumi was chief executive of Kuwait Airways until April this year when she resigned after three years in charge.

Al-Roumi’s resignation letter to interior minister and chairman of the Supreme Aviation Council Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah, in which she complained about a lack of government support for the airline, kicked off a political furor at the time.

Despite the breakthrough that Sharafbafi’s appointment represents for the local aviation sector, Iran as a whole fares extremely poorly when it comes to gender equality. According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report, Iran is ranked 139 out of 144 countries.

While that is dire, from an Iranian perspective it is at least still two places ahead of the country's arch regional rival Saudi Arabia. Some commentators have been quick to highlight the differences between the two countries, with a woman now running Iran’s national airline while their Saudi peers are not even allowed to pilot a car.

The aviation industry as a whole is little better. A 2014 survey by Skift found that only 12 of the 248 airlines it looked at had a female leader.

(Dominic Dudley - Forbes)