Originally Posted by
oliver2002
You would be surprised...
The Germans are very subtle... LH has all the slots and landing rights it needs into India right now... the last time that was a problem LH pushed the right buttons and got it corrected asap. the current bilateral limits the capacity per flight to a 747 which is a vague enough term. AI and other carriers operate a far higher density 744 than LH. The capacity they gaining by giving up HYD should suffice for a few additional flights into a suitable city. The A380 capacity is already planned for the next year and only becomes relevant when the next batch of birds is due for delivery. By then they have additional 744s they could deploy in a 2 class config to India.
DL/AF/KL has a lot to catch up to. This may be their break. Go for it ^ With the restrictive lounge policy for elites in ST they have nothing to fear
If LH has all the slots/rights etc. that they need and if they are indeed capable of getting anything they want then why did they keep persisting with AI for the past 4 years. Why did they choose AI in the first place over 9W? LH might have gotten things sorted in their favor in the past when there was a different minister in charge of civil aviation in India but things are slightly different now.
The problem with getting permission to operate the A380 I think is with the aircraft itself and not the seating capacity. EK operates 7773ERs to India which have a capacity of 440 and its A380s are configured with 480 seats. If GoI said EK can operate A380 into India with a seating capacity of 440 they would probably consider it.
Looks like all LH A380s will be configured with 526 seats.
In fact some of SQ A380s have a capacity of 409. Much less than AI 747s which have a capacity of about 420. Yet SQ is not allowed to fly its A380s to India