Singapore Airlines, first carrier with an Airbus A380 to India

SINGAPORE - Singapore Airlines just made the announcement of serving India with its flagship aircraft, the Airbus A380. The superjumbo will operate daily to both Mumbai and New Delhi with effect from 30 May 2014, aking over from two daily flights that currently serve each city using smaller Boeing 777s. Another daily flight will continue to be operated with B777s. In total, 14 flights will serve each city per week.

"We have been keen to operate the Airbus A380 to India and are glad that the Air Services Agreement between Singapore and India now allows us to do so," said Singapore Airlines Senior Vice President Marketing Planning, Ms Lee Wen Fen.

"India is a particularly important market for Singapore Airlines and we are very pleased that more of our customers will soon be able to experience the spaciousness and comfort of the world's largest aircraft." Singapore Airlines received last year 10% more seat capacities to India but was not able to use of all of them due to aircraft’s seats limitation. Singapore Airlines was the first airline in the world to operate the A380 when it was put into service in October 2007 between Singapore and Sydney. The superjumbo now also serves Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Shanghai,Tokyo Narita and Zurich.

According to the Ministry of Transport, Emirates and Lufthansa are also interested to put their Airbus A380 in service to and from India. Three airports can currently accommodate the A380: Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad while Chennai (Madras) is now working at extending its runway. They are no Indian airlines due to use the Airbus A380 anytime soon. The only carrier which ordered the Airbus A380 was the now defunct private carrier Kingfisher.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews