Lufthansa to Begin Operating A380 Between Frankfurt & Mumbai in 2015

Beginning next summer, Lufthansa will operate the world’s largest commercial aircraft between Mumbai and Frankfurt.

Lufthansa announced on Tuesday that it will commence operations to Mumbai sometime in July or August of 2015. The airline began flying Airbus A380 to Delhi last week after clearing last-minute bureaucratic hurdles, amending the bilateral agreement between Germany and India.

The introduction of the very large aircraft (VLA) marks a turning point in India’s aviation history. India was always a major player in the aviation world, at first as a transit corridor for traffic from Europe to Southeast Asia, and later as a source of traffic to the western world.

Access to the Indian market is regulated by so-called bilateral rights agreements, which define the frequencies, size of the aircraft and the maximum number of passengers that can be transported between respective countries. With the advent of new VLAs, combined with the privatization and expansion of major airports in the country, many of these agreements became dated.

A number of airlines lobbied for the government to update the agreements, and the use of the A380 was finally permitted in February. This, however, created a new issue. While Delhi had the facilities to handle multiple A380 arrivals daily, Mumbai only had one suitable gate.

After Singapore Airlines and Emirates quickly moved to operate at the 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. slots earlier this year, Lufthansa could only access the gate at 10 p.m. or 4 p.m. Neither of these time slots fit into the network planning of the airline, as its Frankfurt hub closed by the time a 10 p.m. departure would arrive, and arrivals from a 4 p.m. departure would miss the wave of connecting departures.

Lufthansa will begin operating flights between Mumbai and Frankfurt next year after the second stage of the airport’s terminal expansion is complete.

[Photo: iStock]