New Delhi:
A day after Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced its decision to fly the superjumbos to Delhi and Mumbai, major Gulf carrier Emirates said it would deploy these Airbus A-380s from Mumbai in July.
"Emirates plans to deploy an A-380 on one of its existing daily services between Dubai to Mumbai, starting from July and is working closely with Mumbai Airport Authorities to make this deployment possible," an Emirates spokesperson said.
She said the airline also had plans to upgrade the existing aircraft to a larger capacity Boeing-777s to Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai from June 1. "We will announce details shortly," she added.
The announcement came on a day when Emirates reported a 43 per cent jump in its annual net profit and the airline, which has 374 aircraft on order, planned to begin services to five new destinations this year.
Yesterday, the Singapore Airlines had announced the launch of its A-380 services from May 30, becoming the first carrier to introduce daily superjumbo flights from Delhi and Mumbai.
The move comes barely four months after the government allowed operation of the world's largest aircraft at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airports which are capable of handling arrival and departure of large number of passengers in one go.
Lifting a five-year-old ban, the government had cleared the decks for A-380 operations from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore in January.
The restriction was lifted after demands by major foreign carriers, including German carrier Lufthansa.
The ban was imposed in 2008 as the government then felt these double-decker, wide-body and long-haul jets would take away a large chunk of global traffic to the detriment of the Indian carriers' interests.
The SIA A-380s can fly 471 passengers in a three-class configuration of first class suites, business class and economy. It was the first airline in the world to operate the A-380 in October 2007 between Singapore and Sydney.