An Emirates flight from Bangkok to Dubai made an unscheduled landing at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport early Sunday. All 410 passengers on board the A380 superjumbo were safe and had been ferried to their destination in batches.
In a statement, an airline spokesperson said: “Emirates can confirm flight EK 385 an A380 aircraft from Bangkok to Dubai was diverted to Hyderabad international airport today at 0345 hours due to a technical snag in the aircraft.’’
The airline said the 410 passengers were disembarked safely. ‘‘205 passengers departed on EK 527, a Boeing 777".
It said a relief aircraft, EK 8385 had been deployed on the Hyderabad-Dubai route to ferry the remaining 205 passengers to Dubai.
Indian news agency IANS earlier reported the aircraft first approached the Chennai airportin Madras but did not get clearance for landing as the runway was busy. "The pilot then contacted Air Traffic Control at Hyderabad Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and got the clearance to land", the IANS report said.
Emirates operates A380s to 15 destinations across the world. It is scheduled to launch A380 services on the Dubai-Munich route from November 25; to Rome from December 1 and to Kuala Lumpur from January next year.
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