For the biggest commercial plane, nod to land still elusive

The ministry of civil aviation continues to be reluctant to allow commercial flights on the Airbus A380, the world’s largest aeroplane, on Indian airports.

Reason? Foreign carriers would corner an even larger share of international traffic.

The A380 can take as many as 517 passengers on a single flight — weaning away significant traffic for many European destinations and other lucrative routes and leaving little room for Indian carriers to do business.

The ministry did allow Emirates Airline to bring in a showcase flight last October but repeated requests by other airlines for beginning commercial operations have hit a wall.

Earlier, there was much speculation that A380 flights of some carriers may be allowed in the winter schedule of 2011 but there is no clarity on the issue even now.

Official sources said not only will an A380 flight make it difficult for Indian carriers to survive, many foreign airlines have not even been using the seats allotted to them under existing bilateral agreements.

Industry sources point out that Germany has been seeking meetings with ministry officials to amend the aviation bilateral agreement for some months now, but to no avail.

The bilateral between India and Germany is apparently based on number of frequencies per week (and not on number of seats allowed per week) so that any amendment would pertain only to the inclusion of A380 aircraft as the largest permitted between two countries, without altering seat allocation.

As of now, 69 frequencies are allowed to carriers of either country; Lufthansa is using 50 frequencies as of now. Germany is seeking permisson to use the A380 only on the Delhi-Frankfurt route.

Sources tell us that Emirates and Singapore Airlines are also keen to bring in the big bird and would hasten their plans if Lufthansa is given a go-ahead, but the Government is just not interested.

One reason for this reluctance is domestic airlines’ lobbying against any such move, saying one A380 flight could wipe out the entire passenger traffic from Europe or other lucrative destinations on any given day since this aircraft can carry 517 passengers in one go.

Indian airlines feel that enhanced capacities for foreign airlines adversely affect their own international passenger loads. With the A380 threat looming large, domestic carriers’ worries have only grown; domestic airlines account for only 40% of international traffic from India. But industry sources point out that not all A 380 flights would spell doom for Indian airlines.

“If the ministry permits A380 flights for Lufthansa, Air India can sell tickets on its network since it is a code share flight. Besides, AI may enter Star Alliance by middle of this year and then, it could bring passenger to Delhi, use Lufthansa to take them to Frankfurt and give them onward connections.”

As of now, Kingfisher is the only Indian airline to have ordered an A380 and delivery of the aircraft to the airline is scheduled for 2015-16. Various other carriers, including Air India, are said to be exploring the option of buying the A380.