International carriers, like Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Emirates, plan to operate super jumbos in India is in a limbo as the government is unlikely to allow them to bring Airbus A380 into the country anytime soon.

“There is a lot beyond just allowing these carriers to fly A380 on their Indian network. Once, the A380s are here, domestic carriers’ load factor will go for a toss,” said aviation ministry official on condition of anonymity.

International operators have been discussing with the government for last two years for allowing Airbus A 380 into India. These airlines have already submitted their respective proposals to aviation ministry. When the new terminal T3 at Delhi international airport was inaugurated, the carriers were hoping that there would be no reason for denial citing infrastructure woes.

However, ministry officials said on Monday it was difficult to take a call as the bigger aircraft would take away all passenger traffic from Indian carriers. The issue also came up at a meeting aviation minister Vayalar Ravi had with Dr Peter Ramsauer, German federal minister of transport, building and urban development on Monday.

Double-decker Airbus A380 is a four-engine aircraft and is considered the largest passenger airline across the globe. The airline can carry upto 853 passengers, which is over 200 more than many aircraft that the Indian carriers fly at present.Aviation ministry officials said the airport did not have enough capacity to handle such big aircraft. But, airport operators are not in agreement with the ministry line as they had maintained that they would be able to handle superjumbos and Boeing Dreamliners at the inauguration of T3.

Industry experts felt that allowing global carriers to fly A380 in the co­untry would not make a big difference to the domestic carriers. “For how long can you not allow them? A380s are the future of aircraft. At present, domestic airlines may not be able to purchase it, but there wo­uld be many A380s in future. This is no reason not to permit foreign airli­nes to bring in new aircraft,” Ankur Bhatia, executive director, Bird group said.