BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq has received a new Boeing 737 Wednesday after an Iraqi team flew the passenger plane to Baghdad direct from the United States, a first for an Iraqi pilot.
The Minister for Transport hailed the new addition to the Iraqi Airways fleet as he welcomed the plane at Baghdad International Airport.
Iraq will name the plane Nineveh after the northern province in recognition of the sacrifices made by Iraqi Security Forces liberating its capital city of Mosul from ISIS, Minister Kazem Finjan al-Hamami stated.
“The Iraqi Airways for the first time in its history will pay for the new aircrafts directly without any support from the bank,” the national carrier Iraqi Airways quoted Hamami in a statement last month.
The statement said that a second Boeing 737 will be received in August, with Iraqi pilots flying the aircrafts direct from the factory in the US to Baghdad.
The transport minister said that Iraq is on the right track with regard to modernizing its air transport sector.
“The Iraqi expertise and capabilities possessed by Iraqi Airways are able to assume the responsibility entrusted to them in order to upgrade the quality of the services and to develop and modernize the Iraqi air fleet,” Al-Hamami said, according to the statement.
As he received the plane in Baghdad, he praised the Iraqi pilots as young and experts in their field.
In May, a Kurdish pilot made headlines in Iraq and Kurdistan after she became the first Iraqi woman to fly a civilian plane since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Warte Abubakir Ali, 26, had earned her certificate in civil aviation in 2015 in Denmark and now flies a Boeing 737 for Iraqi Airways.
Warte Ali (right), 26, a Kurd from the city of Sulaimani, became the first Iraqi woman to earn the certificate to fly a Boeing civilian plane. Photo: Iraqi Airways
Iraqi Airways has about 32 active Boeing 737 planes, according to the industry monitor Air Fleets.
Under the contract signed in 2008, Iraq agreed to buy 40 Boeing 737 and 787 airplanes for Iraqi Airways with the option to purchase 15 more, Reuters reported at the time.
It said that Iraq would receive the last of the planes by the end of 2019.
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