Singapore Airlines yesterday announced it will begin operating A380 flights to India from March 14th. For now, Mumbai will be the only Indian city to get the Giant of the Skies, but Delhi is expected to follow soon.

Singapore Airlines currently operates a daily Airbus A350 service to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM), along with a bi-weekly service using the same aircraft type. As per the new schedule, daily flights will be replaced by the Airbus A380, while the A350-900s will keep operating the twice-a-week schedule.

Sy Yen Chen, General Manager of Singapore Airlines for India, stated,

“We are thrilled to be able to bring our iconic superjumbo back to India. We are optimistic that this will inspire even more confidence for international travel to and from India.”

VTL for all

The tourism industry is a significant contributor to Singapore’s economy. According to data from Statista, the industry was directly responsible for approximately 4% of the South Asian country’s GDP in 2019. But the pandemic had single-handedly brought nearly all of international travel to a stop.

Stay informed: Sign up for our daily and weekly aviation news digests.

The Singapore government has long had bilateral travel bubble arrangements with many countries to make travel for vaccinated passengers easier and stimulate recovery. SIA has now decided to gradually bring all its flights to India under the Vaccinated Travel Lane. This includes flights to Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Kolkata, among others.

Chen also said,

“Singapore’s decision to expand its VTL arrangement to cover all points across India will be a welcome development for all our customers. We continue to see strong demand across India from customers who are waiting to enjoy convenient and quarantine-free travel to Singapore.”

This means that vaccinated passengers traveling between the two countries will now be exempt from mandatory quarantine rules on arrival. However, individuals looking to enter Singapore will have to apply for a Vaccinated Travel Pass (VTP) before the visa application.

G B Srithar, Singapore Tourism Board’s Regional Director for IMESA (India, Middle East, and South Asia), said in a statement,

“The extension of VTL to Singapore from all Indian cities provides the much needed impetus to travel between the countries for all traveller types, whether for leisure, business or cruise. This is part of Singapore’s calibrated and progressive approach in re-opening our borders.”

Déjà vu

This isn’t the first time the Singaporean flag carrier has made plans to bring A380 flights back to India. As Simple Flying reported in December last year, SIA initially planned the A380’s return to the largest democracy in January this year. Mumbai (BOM) was to get superjumbo flights from January 10th and New Delhi (DEL) from February 14th. However, the airline delayed the schedule by two months for BOM, while DEL flights won’t return until May.

As we move towards a steady aviation recovery from the horrors of the pandemic, Singapore Airlines, Qatar, Emirates, and British Airways have all deployed most of their A380 fleet back into service. It will be interesting to see if there is enough demand over the summer travel season for airlines to fill these superjumbo jets.

Have you traveled on any of Singapore Airlines’ A380s before? Please, let us know your experience in the comments.