World's largest passenger plane A380 lands at Delhi's T3

In a landmark of sorts, the first commercial flight of the world's largest passenger aircraft, the A380, has landed at the new Terminal 3 at Delhi's Indira Gandhi Airport.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had inaugurated the terminal on July 3.
Terminal 3, or T3 as the new airport building is called, is the fifth largest airport terminal in the world.

The spanking new world-class Rs 9,000-crore T3 will integrate domestic and international operations and is expected to handle 34 million passengers every year.

New Delhi's Terminal 3 became operational on Wednesday evening as an Air India Boeing from New York via Washington became the first aircraft to dock at one of the 78 aerobridges of the glass-and-steel terminal.

The Emirates A380 Super Jumbo EK516 from Dubai to Delhi arrived at Terminal 3 at about 4 pm on Thursday, after an hour's delay due to bad weather.

The aircraft will be at the IGI Airport for a few hours before it returns to Dubai.

The new Terminal 3,which received its first flight in on Wednesday, is India's only airport terminal capable of receiving A380 flights.

The flight was given a salute with jet of water being sprayed from cannons from both its side as it taxied on the bay to dock at T3.

The passengers were given a warm welcome on arrival by officials of Air India and Delhi International Airport Limited(DIAL).