Two Iranian airlines, Iran Aseman Airlines and Iran Air Tours, signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Sukhoi for the delivery of an initial 40 SuperJet 100 passenger planes on the sidelines of the Eurasia Airshow in Turkey on April 26.

The new deals were announced a day after Boeing said it had found a new home for 80 aircraft that Iran ordered earlier this year, given that if the Trump administration scraps US participation in the nuclear deal the delivery of the jets would not be permitted.  

According to the Sukhoi orders, Iran will receive the SSR100R version of the SuperJet regional airliner by 2022, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft president Aleksandr Rubtsov said after the signing ceremony.

“So far, we have signed two agreements of intent with two Iranian airlines on deliveries of 20 Sukhoi Superjet aircraft in the RRJ-95R (SSJ100R) modification for each of these companies,” Rubtsov said.

He added that the contract would be signed by the end of 2018. The catalogue price for an SSJ100R aircraft is about $52mn.

The Sukhoi SuperJet-100 is Russia’s newest twin-engine regional passenger aircraft. It began operating commercially in 2011, but Iran in the meantime has sought to sign several deals that could be fulfilled with other manufacturers including Boeing, Airbus, ATR, Embraer and Bombardier.

If the Boeing deal and Airbus order—which need US licensing because Airbus planes use US components—collapse, it would be a substantial blow to Iran’s airline industry which suffers from dated and depleted fleets. A leaked report published by Iranian media in July last year outlined how 124 of the Islamic Republic's 298 airliners were grounded due to failures to source sufficient spare parts from abroad.