Lufthansa Drops Plan to Fly A380 to Mumbai, in the short-term at least.

It appears Lufthansa has dropped its plans to switch its daily Frankfurt – Mumbai route from Boeing 747-400 to Airbus A380 operation this winter after Emirates Airline confirmed its intent to continue serving the Dubai – Mumbai route with the Super Jumbo. The problem is there is only one gate at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) that can handle the type and both Emirates and Lufthansa want to utilise this at the same time to ensure connection opportunities are maintained at their respective hubs.

Lufthansa revealed in late June this year that it intended to deploy its largest aircraft on its daily routes from Frankfurt to Delhi and Mumbai from the start of the winter schedules on October 26, 2014. However, while Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport has the infrastructure to handle the airliner, Mumbai has been slower to prepare for the jet and just the single contact gate is available.

It is understood that Lufthansa was given provisional approval by the management at CSIA to make the aircraft switch ahead of final state clearance but Emirates has subsequently confirmed plans to extend the utilisation of the A380 into the winter schedule. The Emirates flight arrives at 02:30am and the Lufthansa service arrives at 01:10am, meaning with a two hour block turnaround for the A380 both could not be accommodated on the stand.

After Lufthansa opened reservations for the A380 flights for India last month it was assumed that Emirates was ending its own use of the type to Mumbai. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier is known to be a little concerned over the deployment of the Super Jumbo as the one contact stand means that should the Singapore Airlines departure to Changi International Airport, scheduled for 00:25, be delayed it can have a knock-on effect on the unloading of the Emirates flight.

However, in a statement to the Indian press it confirmed: “Emirates can confirm that is has received approval to continue operating its A380 services between Dubai and Mumbai for the winter 2014 timetable." Lufthansa has also switched its inventory for the route back to a Boeing 747-400.

This is the second time this year that the German carrier has been forced to modify its plans for the Mumbai market due to the activities of Emirates Airline. It had intended to switch its daily Frankfurt flight from a 747-400 to a larger 747-8I from July 15, 2014 but was forced to drop the plan after Emirates first introduced the A380. Unlike the 747-400, the 747-8I like the A380, has to make used of a larger contact gate due to its wider wingspan.

Lufthansa is likely to receive the green light from Indian authorities to fly the A380 into Mumbai, but without the strong transfer traffic its current operating slot affords, it is unlikely to want to move the service to accommodate the utilisation of the larger aircraft and may have to wait up to 15 months until the airport completes work to support simultaneous A380 operations.

In a statement to the Indian media Lufthansa confirmed that in view of the growing demand it still plans to introduce the A380 in Mumbai. “India is an important market. We have applied for permission [to deploy the A380] and are hopeful for getting approvals soon,” it said.

Air France and British Airways are understood to have also considered launching A380 operations into Mumbai after the civil aviation ministry lifted a five-year-old ban restricting the use of A380s into Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore airports earlier this year, but have both been put off by the current operational restrictions.

Our own analysis shows around 79.8 per cent of Lufthansa’s passengers on flights to and from Mumbai connect on to other destinations from its Frankfurt and Munich Airport hubs, reinforcing the importance of this slot time at CSIA for transfer traffic connecting in Europe. According to MIDT data the largest onward markets from the German cities are all in North America, including in Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas and Chicago in the USA and Toronto in Canada. Other foreign European markets with notable passenger flows include London, UK; Amsterdam, Netherlands and Copenhagen, Denmark.