India lifts ban on A380, but global airlines unlikely to bite the bait now

India today allowed operation of the world’s largest aircraft, Airbus 380, at four of its airports but imposed several conditions before global airlines can fly in the big birds. But global airlines are unlikely to rush in. Till now, the Government has been resisting A380 landings into the country. Reasons have varied from lack of airport infrastructure to protecting domestic, loss making airlines from sliding further. Both the reasons are bunkum of course. The press release issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation just now clearly states that four airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore - are equipped fully to receive such a large aircraft.

The second reason, which was earlier seen protecting Air India and then other airlines, is also untenable since no country can launch flights in excess of weekly seats allowed under a bilateral air services agreement (ASA). If number of seats are limited, type of aircraft should not make a big difference to outbound traffic from India and its share of foreign carriers.

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The press release says A380s are allowed now but here’s the catch:

1. The operations of A-380 aircraft would be subject to overall traffic entitlements within the bilateral ASAs with different countries.

2. Wherever the entitlements are not expressed in terms of seats per week, they will need to be rationalized and converted into seats per week first

3. If any Air Service Agreement (ASA) specifically prohibits operation of A-380 to India, the same will also be required to be amended before A380 operations from that country are allowed.

4. All designated airports shall have to get DGCA certification first

Three airlines were earlier interested in bringing these large aircraft into India - Lufthansa, Emirates and Singapore Airlines. But not all of them may be as keen now. In fact, the decision on revoking the A380 ban comes after airports run by GMR and GVK pushed for this - it was their infrastructure which was getting wasted as the Government dithered. The airlines had been lobbying for years with little success.

Now lets look at the condition which requires ASA to specify number of seats per week. The ASA between India and Germany specifies Boeing 747 as the largest aircraft that can be operated and is also based on number of weekly frequencies and not on seats airlines from either country can offer each week. So Lufthansa, if it even wants to bring in the A380, will need an amendment of the ASA, which is a time consuming process.

The ASA with Singapore was recently enhanced by 10% but from all available information it is based on number of seats per week. So here there could be a possibility of quick deployment of A380 by Singapore Airlines provided the ASA does not specifically prohibit this aircraft.

The bilateral agreement with Dubai is seat based and does not specifically bar the use of A380 into India. But Emirates has been keen to add minimum 10,000 seats a week to its over 54,000 seats per week entitlement if the big aircraft is to make commercial sense. So unless the Indian Government agrees to renegotiating ASA with Dubai too, the lifting of ban on A380 may just be symbolic.

The press release says “Operation of A 380s will help airports to generate more revenue, give more comfortable and luxurious travel to passengers, liberalize the Civil Aviation milieu in India and boost the Iimage of Indian civil aviation in the international market. As per available information, Singapore Airline, Emirates and Lufthansa are interested in operating A-380 aircrafts in India on various international routes.”

Well, it may well be a case of India pursuing these airlines now.