Washington Finds a Novel Way to Ground Iran’s Airlines

By Garth Calitz

There are many ways to ground an airline. Discover that its aircraft are unsafe, run out of money, loses the necessary certificates, closes the airport or, if you happen to be Trump, threatens virtually everyone who supplies the airline with the things it needs to keep flying. The United States has chosen the latter.

From 23 September 2026, Washington is threatening to effectively isolate Iranian airlines from much of the international aviation system by targeting companies that provide them with essential services. Fuel suppliers, airports, ground handlers, ticketing companies and other aviation businesses that continue supporting sanctioned Iranian carriers could find themselves exposed to US sanctions.

It is, technically speaking, not a worldwide grounding order. The Americans aren't going around putting chocks under Iranian aircraft or standing on airport aprons shouting, “You're not going anywhere!” Instead, the approach is considerably more sophisticated: you can fly if you want — just try finding somewhere willing to fuel you.

That distinction is important because Washington cannot simply close the world's airspace to Iranian aircraft. An Iranian airliner flying through Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Russian or other sovereign airspace remains a matter for those countries and their aviation authorities. What Washington can do is make life extremely uncomfortable for the companies that support those aircraft. US sanctions can carry enormous financial consequences for international businesses that rely on American banks, dollar transactions and the wider US financial system.

For a multinational airport operator or fuel company, that isn't exactly the sort of commercial incentive normally found in the sales brochure. The aircraft isn't grounded. The airport just doesn't want to know you

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that Iranian airlines will effectively be shut down around the world, with companies providing services to them potentially exposed to sanctions. The warning represents a significant escalation in the pressure being applied to Iran's aviation sector. Washington has already sanctioned Iranian airlines and organisations accused of supporting the country's aviation and military networks, and the latest threat is aimed at making those sanctions much more difficult to circumvent through third countries.

Iranian airlines are hardly strangers to this sort of thing. They have operated under sanctions for decades and have developed a remarkable ability to keep aircraft flying despite restrictions on acquiring new aircraft, engines, avionics, components and other equipment. Iran Air and Mahan Air have maintained international operations despite fleets that have often required complicated procurement and maintenance arrangements.

The latest pressure, however, targets the ecosystem around the aircraft. An airline needs aircraft, pilots, engineers, maintenance, spare parts, fuel, airport access, navigation services, ground handling, insurance, ticketing and payment systems. Remove enough of those and the aircraft becomes what might politely be described as a very expensive piece of apron furniture.

Nobody necessarily has to physically ground the aircraft. A fuel company can simply decide that supplying it isn't worth the financial exposure. An airport can decide that handling the flight creates unnecessary complications. A ticketing company can remove the carrier from its system. Suddenly, nobody has actually grounded the airline — everyone has simply decided they would rather not be standing underneath it when the sanctions hammer comes down.

An airline can be based in Iran, operate an aircraft registered elsewhere, fly through the airspace of a third country, land at an airport owned by another company and purchase fuel from an international supplier. Washington's strategy is essentially to put pressure on the links connecting all those operations.

Imagine the airport boardroom conversation:

“Good news, gentlemen, we've acquired a new Iranian airline customer.”

“How much revenue?”

“R50 million.”

“Excellent. And what happens if we continue serving them?”

“We could lose access to the US financial system.”

“Cancel the contract.”

And just like that, an international airline becomes considerably less international.

The great international aviation game of 'Who's willing to take the risk?'

The big question now is how much of the international aviation industry is prepared to continue dealing with Iranian carriers. The United States has considerable financial leverage, but the world is not entirely Washington's to command. China remains an important economic partner of Iran, while Russia has its own strategic and economic relationships with Tehran. Other countries may also decide that their political or commercial interests outweigh the risks associated with complying with Washington's pressure.

That means Iranian airlines are unlikely to simply disappear overnight. Instead, their international networks could become increasingly concentrated around countries willing and able to maintain aviation links with Iran.

That could produce a rather unusual route map. Instead of planning networks around passenger demand, aircraft performance and airport capacity, Iranian carriers may increasingly have to consider a far more basic question:

“Will somebody actually provide us with fuel when we get there?”

A route that looks perfectly sensible on a network-planning computer becomes somewhat less useful when the destination's fuel supplier refuses to touch the aircraft. Welcome to geopolitics, airline edition

The irony is that sanctions are becoming another form of aviation infrastructure. Traditionally, airline route planning revolved around runway length, weather, aircraft performance, airport slots and passenger demand. Now there is another increasingly important consideration: “Can we actually do business there?”

So, as Iranian airlines head into 23 September, the question isn't necessarily whether their aircraft can fly. The question is whether enough airports, fuel suppliers, handlers, insurers and financial institutions will still be prepared to help them do it.

Washington may therefore have found a particularly modern way of grounding an airline: Don't ground the aircraft — ground the ecosystem around it.