Indian airline companies to acquire 60 Airbus A380 aircrafts

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 14 July 2010, 17:57 IST   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: Indian airline companies will acquire 50-60 Airbus A380 aircraft over the next 20 years. Airbus A380 aircraft is the largest passenger plane flying today. A business of over $15 billion for the Europe-based aircraft manufacturing giant is expected from this, reports Ganapathy Subramaniam from Economic Times. Kiran Rao, vice-president-in-charge of marketing at Airbus and head of India operations said "there is tremendous potential for the use of A380 by Indian airlines since traffic here is growing much faster than other parts of the world." "Due to strong economic growth, air traffic in India is expected to double in 10 years while it will take 15 years for many other markets. In 15 years, traffic here will probably triple," he added. Kingfisher is the only Indian airline company to have ordered an A380. Various other carriers, including Air India, are said to be exploring the option of acquiring the A380. According to Airbus, airline companies in India will acquire over 990 passenger aircraft over the next 20 years. "As of now, there are several flights from Delhi and Mumbai to London every day. This is good example of an international destination to which traffic from India can justify deployment of A380," Rao said. The Indian airports like those at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, can handle the A380, the senior Airbus official said. The Kolkata airport has been listed as a diversion facility for the A380. "The necessary infrastructure is available here. The runways at key metro airports can handle the A380." Emirates is bringing A380 to Delhi and its arrival and departure will be handled by the recently-completed T3 terminal. "Utilization of the A380 in the Indian market would be first for the international sector." Airbus expects to see domestic A380 flights at a later stage. "Traffic is growing at around 16 percent and we expect further acceleration," Rao said.