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.