A Giant Leap in Civil Aviation As The Mammoth A-380 Gets The Govt Nod

In an important development in the field of Indian civil aviation, the ministry of civil aviation has removed the restriction imposed earlier on the gigantic aircraft Airbus A-380 in Indian sky. After the removal of these restrictions, airlines can bring their international A-380 flights to those Indian cities where airports have the ability to handle flights of the capacity of A-380. Till now only four airports in the country have the necessary facility in place to handle such flights.

Decision for the removal of restriction came after due consultation by Minister of Civil Aviation Ajit Singh with the Airport Authority of India and DGCA. In India only Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airport are capable to handle the flights of A-380. As per the ministry release, operations of A-380 aircraft would be subject to overall traffic entitlements within the bilateral Air Service Agreements (ASAs) with different countries. "Also where ever the entitlements are not expressed in terms of seats per week, the same should be rationalized and converted into seats per week before allowing A-380 operations to India from these countries," the release said.

Flights of A-380 to India may take some time as before the operations of these planes are allowed, airports will have to take DGCA certification and have to prepare them for handling such flights by making necessary changes in terms of services required. It is important to note that this aircraft can have a maximum capacity of 853 passengers in all economy class which makes it the biggest aircraft in the world. Due to these mammoth capacities most of the domestic airlines were opposing its entry into Indian sky as there is a serious threat of losing customers to A-380 due to economy of scale. At the same time it may lead to reduction in international fare for the passengers and more competition in the aviation space. It will also provide more comfort and luxury to passengers. 

As far as possession of A-380 is concerned Emirates, Singapore Airline, Lufthansa are some of the airlines that have this aircraft and want to fly this to Indian routes. Experts feel that this step will bring more competition into civil aviation space and may result in revenue loss for domestic airlines, particularly which operate on international routes.