Emirates is seeing big demand for premium and business class seats on Delhi routes prompting it to deploy the A380 service from October
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Mumbai: International airlines are increasing their premium offering on India routes on the back of high demand for business and first-class seats.Lufthansa began deploying Airbus A380 aircraft on Munich-Mumbai route last week. From October 25, Emirates will operate an A380 aircraft from Delhi to Dubai. The A380 aircraft of both these airlines have premium dense configurations which means these have more business and first-class seats than Airbus A350 or Boeing 777.“We’re seeing very strong demand across India, particularly for premium travel, and the deployment of the A380 allows us to respond to that demand with significantly greater premium capacity. The aircraft offers more business class and premium economy seats, while also reintroducing Lufthansa’s first-class on the Mumbai route. This gives customers travelling between India and Europe even more choice, complementing the daily first-class offering already available on Swiss services to Mumbai,” said Kevin Markette, Lufthansa Group Senior Director – Regional Sales South Asia.Strong DemandMarkette said the A380 will be flown to Mumbai in the summer schedule and its deployment reflects strong demand between India and Europe.Other carriers too are tapping the opportunity with Swiss operating a second daily to Delhi till end of October and British Airways increasing frequencies on Delhi and Bengaluru routes.These moves come amid increased competition and changes in traffic flows following tensions in West Asia. Air India is upping its game by deploying its latest in-flight products to Frankfurt, London and Tokyo. Several governments had issued travel advisories asking their citizens to avoid travelling to the West Asia region. These had an impact on transit flows via hubs such as Dubai or Doha benefitting the European airlines. The situation is slowly improving now.Premium TravelA source said Emirates is seeing big demand for premium and business class seats on Delhi routes prompting it to deploy the A380 service from October. The Emirates A380 has upto 6 extra first-class and upto 26 more business class seats than its Boeing 777s.The deployment of large premium aircraft such as A380 on key India routes reflect airlines confidence in sustained demand for premium travel from India, said Indiver Rastogi, President and Group Head - Global Business Rravel, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel.FCM Travel’s Managing Director Sunny Sodhi said the firm has seen double-digit year on year (Y-o-Y) growth in business and first-class transactions on India routes led by MNCs. “Demand via Gulf hubs declined sharply following the government advisories but has gradually recovered as airlines restored capacity to around 90 per cent of the previous levels,” he said.“Yet many corporates continue to take a wait and watch approach to travel via Gulf carriers,” Sodhi added.Published on July 16, 2026
