Iran cancels Baghdad, Muscat flights as regional restrictions tighten

Students and language teachers described cancelled exams, disrupted preparation and growing reliance on overseas testing in interviews with Iranian newspaper Etemad.

TOEFL and GRE testing inside Iran stopped after the US Treasury Department suspended an authorization covering certain educational services involving Iran on August 24. Applicants have also faced restrictions affecting PTE and Duolingo, although the rules differ between providers.

“The morning she arrived at the center, they told her the test would not be held because of sanctions,” Homa, a language teacher identified only by her first name, said of a student who travelled from Gilan province in northern Iran. “That Saturday, all I could hear was students crying, some of whom had only a few weeks until their test date.”

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Some candidates had already paid for transportation and accommodation before learning their exams would not take place. Others were approaching university deadlines with little time to find alternatives.

Exam trips become a new expense

Applicants are increasingly looking to Armenia, Turkey and other nearby countries, feeding an informal business offering what Homa described as “exam tours.”

Intermediaries arrange appointments, foreign-currency payments, transportation and accommodation, sometimes allowing applicants to leave Iran, sit an exam and return within 24 or 48 hours.

Applicants travelling overland and sharing accommodation can spend around 300 million rials, about $130 at an open-market rate of roughly 2.3 million rials to the dollar. More expensive trips can reach 1 billion to 1.5 billion rials, or about $435 to $650, Homa estimated.

Those sums compare with a government-set minimum base wage of about 166 million rials, or $72, a month. With standard allowances, the minimum monthly package for a single worker is around 218 million rials, or $95.

Telegram groups have become information hubs for testing centers, accommodation and foreign payments. Homa said some operators also offer to manipulate internet or computer settings to make applicants inside Iran appear to be abroad, potentially exposing them to cancelled scores or blocked accounts.

Few alternatives without travel

Switching exams can mean losing months of specialized preparation and does not necessarily eliminate the need to travel.

IELTS is in a different position because it is jointly owned by the British Council, Australia's IDP and Cambridge University Press & Assessment rather than a US testing organization. The suspension of General License G therefore does not directly apply to it.

IELTS testing inside Iran, however, had already ended on January 31, 2026, after IDP cited separate “financial and regulatory factors” outside its control. Iranian applicants seeking the test must therefore also travel abroad.

Tabassom, identified only by her first name, had spent nine months preparing for PTE as part of plans to obtain an Australian work visa. She now expects to switch to IELTS.

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“I spent an average of 150 million rials ($65) a month on language training,” Tabassom said. “Over nine months, I spent nearly one billion rials ($435) just on classes and training. I had reached the point where I was going to take the exam in another month and a half, but now I have to switch to IELTS and start preparing again.”

Domestic problems compound the disruption

The testing restrictions have landed on applicants already dealing with economic and infrastructure problems inside Iran.

Tabassom said internet outages had already disrupted contact with her immigration lawyer before the problems surrounding PTE forced her to change plans.

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Applicants with sufficient resources can respond by travelling abroad or paying for additional preparation. Others may have to borrow money or delay their plans. Homa said some students had sold gold or household belongings or taken loans to continue pursuing testing and migration.

For Iranians seeking to study or work abroad, the challenge is no longer only achieving the required score, but finding an affordable way to reach the examination room.

Speaking on an online program last week, Soltani said networks built to evade oil sanctions stood to lose from the June memorandum between Tehran and Washington, because implementing it would have cut their role in oil sales.

Three Saudi and Qatari tankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz less than three weeks after the memorandum was signed. Soltani said the attacks served to derail the agreement and prevent sanctions on Iranian oil from being lifted for good, keeping the networks in business.

The people he described as trustees are not the traders who sell the oil, he said, but the intermediaries who move the money. He named Ruhollah Razavi, son-in-law of Majid Motaghifar, spokesman for the hardline Paydari Party, as one of four who control much of the trade.

The margins are the point. Moving the proceeds of a single tanker carrying about $90 million of oil costs roughly $4 million through these intermediaries, Soltani said. Through SWIFT, the international banking system Iran is cut off from, it would cost about $500.

He also said the four had run monthly debts to the government in the hundreds of millions of dollars while using the money for other business, putting the monthly average attributed to Hossein Shamkhani, son of the late security chief Ali Shamkhani, at about $800 million.

Iranian outlets have recently named Razavi, Shamkhani and two others as the network's main trustees, and asked how they were chosen and how the system works.

The backlash

Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, said Washington had violated the memorandum, particularly its provision on the Strait of Hormuz, and rejected any suggestion that Iran bore responsibility for its collapse.

"Recent reports, including material published by Yashar Soltani and affiliated media, seek to switch the roles of victim and culprit and portray Iran as responsible for the failure of the memorandum," Fars wrote. "The narrative that vigilantes broke the agreement is simple and attractive, but when placed alongside the successive violations by the United States, it falls apart."

Tasnim, also linked to the Guards, called it performative justice-seeking. "If a nation is told that the war with the United States and Israel is not the product of the wickedness and crimes of these two regimes, but rather the result of the mischief of some people inside the country seeking to continue benefiting economically, what incentive will remain there for unity?" it asked.

The state broadcaster's political program Be Vaght-e Iran argued on social media that no commercial network could have carried out the attacks whatever its motive.

"Trustees have neither a military structure, nor anti-ship cruise missiles, nor links to the command levels of the IRGC and army," the post said. "This type of narrative is not only unprofessional, but also a dangerous and disturbing game aimed at discrediting the defenders of the country's security who have stood by this land for years."

A military analyst in an accompanying video said that while the United States had violated the memorandum, only Iran's wartime command, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, could have ordered missile strikes.

The accusations

Hardline users have accused Soltani of serving those who want to pressure Iran's armed forces.

Ehsan Hosseini, who edits the hardline publication Khat-e Energy, said Soltani was trying to swap one set of trustees for another: "The project Yashar Soltani has launched is not against the trustees; it seeks to oust some and replace them with other trustees, those who failed to return $13 billion in oil revenues and caused the January protests."

Majid Shakeri, an adviser to parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, called the revelations a propaganda campaign by one group of trustees against another. Both groups, he said, had contributed to two wars and to last year's protests, and anyone attributing Iran's response to the American violation to this rivalry deserved a "field trial for wartime treason."

Journalist Davoud Modarresian put the blame on the government, which he said had neither the nerve to leave the dollar-based financial order nor the ability to control the trustees.

"By implementing currency shocks and releasing the dollar exchange rate in December, they pushed the economy to the brink of collapse and created the conditions for the enemy's military greed," he wrote.

Not all of it was hostile. "If oil is sold without obstruction or sanctions by the ministry under the memorandum, and its money returns through transparent channels, the profits of the trustees and the IRGC will be cut," one user wrote, arguing that this pointed to collusion between the two.

For Iranians visiting relatives abroad, returning home has become increasingly uncertain. For those living outside the country, reaching parents, children and other loved ones in Iran is becoming just as difficult.

The disruption has left travelers trying to determine which flights are still operating, whether future bookings can be relied upon and what alternatives remain if they cannot fly.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that US sanctions would effectively shut Iranian airlines out of international operations from September 23, warning foreign companies against providing them with fuel, ground services or ticket sales.

“All the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world,” Bessent told CNBC. “If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets, or you will be knocked out of the dollar system.”

The warning does not itself close foreign airspace to Iranian aircraft, but raises the risk of US penalties for companies and financial institutions that continue doing business with sanctioned carriers. The practical impact will depend on how governments, airports and service providers respond.

Iran International contacted multiple international airlines and four travel agencies specializing in travel to Iran to establish what options remain for passengers.

Which flights are still available?

Options are increasingly limited and can change at short notice.

Turkish Airlines has suspended all flights to Iran until at least March 2027, a company representative told Iran International by phone, adding that no services are currently scheduled before then and there is no guarantee they will resume in March.

Emirates said it is no longer operating flights to Tehran, while Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines confirmed that flights to and from Iran are suspended until at least October 24, 2026.

Both Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines said they were monitoring the situation and could not guarantee that flights would resume after that date.

Qatar Airways told Iran International that its flights to Iran are currently suspended because of airspace restrictions. Services are tentatively scheduled to resume on November 29, but the airline said that date could change depending on conditions.

Four travel agencies specializing in Iran travel said they were also unable to book operating services on airlines from Russia, China and Oman, as well as Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines and carriers serving routes from Armenia, at the time they spoke to Iran International.

One agency said it had seen Pegasus continue to accept some bookings for Iran routes that were later cancelled at short notice, forcing passengers to change their travel plans.

Iran International found some Pegasus itineraries between Turkey and Iran displayed on booking platforms from November 29, but the listings do not guarantee that the flights will operate.

Iran also did not appear as a destination option in searches on Flydubai’s or Expedia’s booking systems. Other routes checked by Iran International produced no available itineraries before March 2027.

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Those searches provide only a snapshot of what booking platforms were displaying at the time and do not establish when international services will resume or whether other routes may remain available.

How are people getting to and from Iran?

The travel agencies, which requested anonymity, said their businesses had been severely affected as passengers looked for alternatives to flying directly into Iran.

They said some travelers arriving from Western countries were flying to Turkey and then taking a roughly 17-hour bus journey to Van, near the Iranian border.

From there, travelers could cross into Iran and continue by road. The agencies estimated that reaching Tehran from Van could take another 16 to 17 hours by bus or car.

That can mean more than 30 hours on the road alone, excluding the initial flight, border crossings and waiting times.

The agencies said Mahan Air had already stopped operating from Turkish airports after losing access to ground-handling services.

The disruption followed the US Treasury’s September 8 sanctions package, which designated all Iranian airlines and also targeted three Turkey-based companies accused of providing services to Mahan Air. Treasury described the 27 sanctioned carriers as Iran’s remaining airlines not already covered by US sanctions.

Other Iranian carriers were still operating through Turkish airports as of September 21, the agencies said, but they expected those services to come under increasing pressure after September 23 as companies assessed the risk of continuing to service sanctioned aircraft.

What changes on September 23?

The US Treasury sanctioned 36 targets connected to Iran’s aviation sector on September 8, including 27 Iranian airlines. Treasury accused the aviation sector of being used to transport weapons, military personnel and illicit cargo.

Bessent said on September 21 that the restrictions would effectively shut Iranian airlines out of international operations from September 23 by targeting the foreign services they rely on.

The sanctions do not automatically prohibit Iranian aircraft from entering every country or close foreign airspace to them. But airlines need access to airports, fuel, ground handling, ticketing, banking and other services to operate internationally, giving Washington significant leverage over their ability to continue flying abroad.

Some countries have already moved to restrict Iranian carriers.

Flights by US-sanctioned Iranian airlines to Georgia stopped from September 21 after the affected carriers operated their final services the previous day, according to Georgian media. Georgia’s Civil Aviation Agency had earlier said it takes US and European sanctions mechanisms into account when granting foreign airlines access to its aviation market.

Iraq is moving even earlier than Bessent’s September 23 deadline. Two Iraqi government sources told AFP that Baghdad would suspend flights operated by Iranian airlines from dawn on Tuesday, September 22.

One official said Iraq would implement the restriction in accordance with the US Treasury decision and warned that countries failing to comply risked sanctions. A second source confirmed the decision.

The suspension could particularly affect Shiite pilgrims travelling from Iran to the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, as well as families and other passengers who rely on flights between the two countries.

For travelers, the central problem is that schedules displayed today may offer little certainty about what will actually operate in the coming weeks. With foreign airlines withdrawing and Iranian carriers facing new barriers abroad, travelling both into and out of Iran is increasingly dependent on a shrinking number of routes — or long overland journeys through neighboring countries.

Rising foreign exchange rates, sanctions and difficulties obtaining specialized equipment have become major challenges for the industry, where many mines still rely on traditional or semi-mechanized methods, said the report.

“There is an inverse relationship between the exchange rate and the provision of equipment; the more expensive foreign currency becomes, the less financial capacity employers have to provide safety,” Ebrahim Rahimian, executive secretary of the Tabas Workers’ House, told ILNA.

Many components used in mine monitoring and safety systems are imported and have no domestically produced alternatives, Rahimian said.

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Employers, he added, still have options to obtain equipment if they prioritize worker safety, including raising the necessary funds to purchase imported products at market exchange rates.

Deadly record in Iran’s mines

Workplace accidents, according to ILNA, remain a persistent problem in Iran, with coal mines among the most dangerous workplaces because of the conditions involved in underground extraction.

A collapse at the Parvadeh Tabas Coal Company mine killed a worker on April 29 in one of the latest fatal accidents.

A methane explosion at a coal mine in Tabas killed 53 workers in September 2024, drawing renewed attention to safety standards in Iran’s mining industry.

The economic pressures affecting mine operators have intensified as the rial has lost value, making imported machinery and specialized equipment more expensive.

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Sharp currency fluctuations have also complicated financial planning for businesses as Iran contends with sanctions and persistent inflation.

Underground mines need advanced monitoring

Coal miners working underground require more than personal protective equipment such as boots and gloves, Rahimian said.

Advanced systems, he added, are needed to continuously monitor gas concentrations and pressure in layers above underground workings, providing information directly connected to workers’ safety.

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Workers at mining companies in Tabas, Kerman, Zarand and Jiroft continue to operate using traditional or semi-mechanized methods, with only one company providing an exception, according to Rahimian.

Training is another essential part of reducing the dangers workers face underground, particularly in preparing them to respond to emergencies, he said.

“Continuous training and retraining is the minimum right of the workforce and must not be stopped at any cost.”

The combination of aging mining practices, costly imported safety technology and mounting economic pressure has left workers exposed to hazards that previous deadly accidents have already demonstrated can carry severe consequences.

The index measuring manufacturers’ raw material inventories fell to 39.3 in August from about 44.5 in July, while the Purchasing Managers’ Index for the overall economy dropped to 46.9, according to the survey. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.

Continued depletion of raw material inventories, combined with weakness elsewhere in the supply chain, could become one of the “most serious constraints on industrial production growth” in the coming months, the Iran Chamber of Commerce warned.

War damage adds to supply pressure

Part of the shortage cannot be explained by restrictions on imports alone. Iran was a major producer and exporter of several affected products, including petrochemicals and steel, before the war.

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Major petrochemical facilities in Asaluyeh and Mahshahr and the Mobarakeh Steel and Khuzestan Steel complexes were targeted during the war. Asaluyeh and Mahshahr together accounted for roughly three-quarters of Iran’s petrochemical production before the strikes.

Mobarakeh and Khuzestan Steel also sustained damage to production infrastructure.

The chamber attributed pressure on raw material stocks to limited access to foreign currency, difficulties with imports and customs clearance, goods being held at customs, logistical disruptions and higher procurement costs.

The oil and gas products sector recorded the lowest raw material inventory index at 23.3, followed by vehicles and related parts at 28.7. Rubber and plastics and the clothing and leather industries each recorded 32.2.

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Only the food industry and the wood, paper and furniture sector recorded raw material inventory readings above 50.

Input costs climb

Manufacturers also reported a sharp rise in raw material costs, with the purchase-price index increasing to 88.2 in August from 80.4 in July.

The index exceeded 100 for oil and gas products, while machinery and household appliances and non-metallic mineral products recorded readings above 92. Raw material purchase-price indices were above 50 across every industrial sector surveyed.

Other major PMI components remained below 50, including output or service activity at 47.8, new customer orders at 47.5, suppliers’ delivery times at 48.6 and employment at 47.3. All deteriorated from July except employment, which was unchanged.

Consumer prices were more than 84% higher in August than a year earlier, while annual inflation stood at about 69%, according to the Statistical Center of Iran.

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The sharp increase in manufacturers’ input costs adds to inflationary pressure on consumer prices. The Chamber warned that shrinking inventories could also reduce production capacity and disrupt or halt some production lines if current conditions persist.