Dubai: Emirates is taking the world’s biggest passenger plane into India with the airline announcing plans to operate the Airbus A380 to Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport from July.
Emirates will be the second airline to deploy the superjumbo into India after Singapore Airlines, which will start A380 services in May.
Earlier this year, India lifted a ban on airlines operating the A380 into the country. Only four airports, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, are certified for A380 operations.
Dubai-Mumbai service
“Emirates plans to deploy an A380 on one of its existing daily services between Dubai to Mumbai, starting from July, and is working closely with Mumbai Airport authorities to make this deployment possible,” an Emirates spokesperson told Gulf News in an e-mailed statement.
“In addition we have plans to upgrade existing aircraft to larger capacity Boeing 777s to Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai starting from June 1. We will announce details shortly,” the spokesperson added.
Emirates has 54,000 weekly seats spread across 185 weekly flights into India.
In February, regulators added 11,000 weekly seats on the Dubai-India route that will be released on a staggered basis.
Emirates is the world’s largest A380 operator with 47 aircraft in the fleet, as of April 27, and a total of 140 planes on order. It has been operating the superjumbo since 2008.
Etihad Airways has said that it will deploy the A380 into India “if the numbers work.” Etihad, which receives its first A380 in December, will initially utilise the aircraft on the Abu Dhabi-London route. Next year, four will be delivered and be used to fly to Sydney, Melbourne, Paris and New York.
