Between 2015 and 2018, Mahan Air significantly expand its operations and fleet. Mahan Air targets the transfer business between Asia, especially China, and European destinations. In 2016, besides Germany and Denmark, Mahan Air started service to Milan and Athens; and to Barcelona the following year. It operated up to 15 weekly flights to China until late 2018. During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, Mahan Air launched their its direct Caracas-Tehran route in April. In January 2019, the German government banned Mahan Air from landing in Germany, where it formerly served Munich Airport and Düsseldorf Airport, citing Mahan's involvement in Syria and security concerns. France imposed the same ban on 25 March 2019, and Mahan Air was forced to cancel its 4-weekly service to Paris. On 1 November 2019, the Italian government also announced that the country would ban Mahan Air flights to the country from 15 December 2019. The move came after the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Rome, during which he urged Italian officials to stop allowing Iranian airlines to use Italy's airspace. The remaining destinations within the European Union had been Barcelona and seasonally also Athens and Varna since then. However, in April 2020 the airline lost its traffic rights to Spain as well. In February and March, after Iran officially suspended all flights to and from China, Mahan Air continued flying to China and elsewhere. The airline lied about these flights taking place, according to an investigation by the BBC. Arrival and departure data from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini and Chinese airports shows flights continued into March. A Feb. 5 flight carried the remaining iraqi students from Wuhan to Baghdad while a Feb. 6 flight carried 70 Iranian students back from Wuhan to Tehran,   Mahan Air claimed it had ended all flights from China after an Iranian student newspaper criticized the February 6 flight. But data from commercial flight tracker Flightradar24 showed 55 more flights from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, lasting until Feb. 23 (by which time Iran had 43 confirmed COVID-19 cases). The BBC investigation established that Lebanon’s first COVID-19 cases originated on Mahan Air flights. Planes that went to Tehran from China also made onward travel within 24 hours to Barcelona, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul. From February 6 to March 31, a total of 37 Mahan Air flights went to Dubai, 19 flights went to Turkey, 12 went to Malaysia, 8 went to Syria, and 6 went to Thailand.