Airbus A-380s to operate from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyd and Bangalore

New Delhi, Jan 27 (PTI): Decks have been cleared for Airbus A-380s to operate from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore with the Government today lifting its five-year-old ban, a decision that may soon see airlines like Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Lufthansa flying them from these airports.

The restriction, which was lifted by Civil Aviation Ministry after several years of demands by these major foreign carriers, was imposed in 2008 as the government then felt these double-decker, wide-body and long-haul jets would help foreign airlines to take away a large chunk of global traffic which could be detrimental to the Indian carriers' interests.

The A-380s would now be allowed to airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, which are currently equipped to handle them and have the required infrastructure.

All these airports would have to get DGCA certification and make adequate preparation in terms of various services required to handle the large number of passengers these planes can accommodate when they land or take off.

The decision was immediately welcomed by aircraft manufacturer Airbus, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Singapore Airlines and Emirates. The foreign airlines have been pressing the government on the issue since 2008-09.

Nine of the 10 international airlines that fly the A-380s have scheduled flights into India. There are over 110 A-380s currently flying worldwide.

Several round of meetings were held between officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Air India and Airports Authority of India and others in the Ministry on these issues before the decision was taken.

An A-380 can seat 850 passengers in an all-economy configuration, but those having a three-class configuration can accommodate between 550-600 passengers.

The operations of the A-380s would be subject to overall traffic entitlements within the bilateral Air Service Agreements (ASAs) with different countries, an official spokesperson said.

The Ministry also decided that wherever the entitlements were not expressed in terms of seats per week, these would be rationalised and converted into seats per week before allowing A-380 operations to India from these countries.

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Airbus A-380s to operate from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyd and Bangalore