A-380 may land ahead of schedule
NEW DELHI: India will see the world’s biggest commercial airliner, the A-380, in regular operation much earlier than expected. Kingfisher, the only Indian carrier to have ordered this aircraft, was supposed to start getting deliveries from late 2011. However, the airline’s CEO Vijay Mallya told TOI that he has "requested Airbus to advance the delivery of two planes to 2009", something which is most likely to happen.
Hoping to get government clearances to fly abroad much before then, the airline plans to mount these planes on the Bangalore-San Francisco and Mumbai/Delhi-New York routes with a possible stop-over in Europe.
"Negotiations are on with Airbus," Mallya said. Kingfisher is keen on getting these planes fast as the aviation ministry is learnt to be in favour of a case-to-case basis clearance to airlines for flying abroad and do away with the five-year norm. Moreover, Delhi will get an A-380-compliant code F runway next year. New airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad are also going to be ready next year that can easily accommodate this plane.
The airline had placed a firm order of five A-380s, each of which has a list price of Rs 1,200 crore, with an option of five more at the Paris air show in 2005. The original delivery schedule was supposed to begin in 2010 but Airbus’ initial troubles with this plane meant that the planes would start coming from 2011 or 2012. Mallya is learnt to be renegotiating the price because of delays.
But with the focus on the US-India sector amidst Jet beginning flights via Brussels and Air India launching nonstop ones from August, Kingfisher too wants to begin operation on this route with its characteristic bang. It plans to have a casino on board this aircraft and put three classes — first, business and economy.
From next March, Kingfisher will start getting the long range A-340-500 planes that are capable of flying nonstop for 16 hours. Sources say this plane could be used for nonstop flights while trans-Atlantic flights via London may be mounted on the A-380. These plans are not on thin air as the airline’s recent acquisition of 26% stake in Air Deccan has put it on a firmer ground. "Air Deccan will complete five years of operation in 2008 and would be eligible to fly abroad. Anyway, there’s a proposal to relax norms for airlines to go abroad," said a senior official.
Kingfisher clearly wants to be the first Indian carrier to begin operating the A-380s. The only other airline that's currently considering this plane is AI. It is learnt to be looking at the 550-seater (in three classes) A-380 and the 475-seater Boeing 747-800 for being inducted into fleet after 2011.
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