Singapore Airlines on Friday will become the first airline to start commercial operations of the world's largest passenger aircraft, Airbus 380, in India.

Singapore Airlines on Friday will become the first airline to start commercial operations of the world's largest passenger aircraft, Airbus 380, in India.

The airline will fly the A380 daily from Mumbai and Delhi. It is scheduled to land in Delhi after 8 pm this evening.

Singapore Airlines had earlier this month announced the launch of its A-380 services from 30 May (today), becoming the first carrier to introduce daily superjumbo flights from Delhi and Mumbai.

The move came barely four months after the government allowed operation of the world's largest aircraft at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airports which are capable of handling arrival and departure of large number of passengers in one go.

Lifting a five-year-old ban, the government had cleared the decks for A-380 operations from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore in January.

The restriction was lifted after demands by major foreign carriers, including German carrier Lufthansa.

The ban was imposed in 2008 as the government then felt these double-decker, wide-body and long-haul jets would take away a large chunk of global traffic to the detriment of the Indian carriers' interests.

The SIA A-380s can fly 471 passengers in a three-class configuration of first class suites, business class and economy. It was the first airline in the world to operate the A-380 in October 2007 between Singapore and Sydney.

With PTI inputs