India approves A380s to fly into the country

Beginning of this month, I’d written a short post peeping into what I expected to see in the year ahead with respect to Indian aviation. I am happy to see that 2 bullet points out of that list can already be struck off. First, Mumbai’s Terminal 2 has already been inaugurated and airlines will migrate to International operations here in a matter of weeks.

Now, this afternoon (India Time), India’s aviation ministry has made a much expected announcement, which allows for the superjumbo Airbus A380 planes to fly to India. Till last year, India had prohibited the A380 from flying into India because of the lack of readiness to accommodate this double decker plane, and in part to protect national carrier Air India. As a result, the biggest plane that could come in so far was a Boeing 747.

As per a Press Information Bureau statement:

The Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Shri Ajit Singh has decided to remove restrictions on flights of Airbus A-380 to India. Now, flights of A-380 to India will be allowed to airports which are equipped to handle them. At present only 4 airports, i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore have the required infrastructure for operations of A-380. The decision has been taken after due consultations with the DGCA, Air India and Airports Authority of India.

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As per available information, Singapore Airline, Emirates and Lufthansa are interested in operating A-380 aircrafts in India on various international routes.

This surely is a progressive move, because this will allow airlines to bring in their latest product to the Indian market, and flyers would be able to benefit from them all the way, rather than hopping on to via flights to Europe/UAE/South East Asia on older planes in the airline fleet. And it seems they read my blog too, because the same airlines mentioned in my beginning of year post, have been mentioned by the PIB as well. Winking smile