An Emirates Airbus A380 flying from Dubai to Sydney has diverted to Bengaluru Kempegowda International Airport (BLR) while on a flight from Dubai (DXB) to Sydney (SYD), Australia.  

The flight in question, EK412, departed Dubai at 10:57 local time on November 12, 2023, and was operated by one of the carrier’s 119-strong fleet of Airbus A380s registered A6-EVK. 

Around three hours into the flight, the aircraft made a sharp about turn off the southern tip of the island of Sri Lanka and headed north, landing at Bengaluru Airport at 18:57 local time. 

The airline said in a statement that the flight diverted due to “operational reasons”. The same aircraft later departed Bengaluru at 20:39 after one hour and 34 minutes on the ground and landed in Sydney at 12:42 on November 13.   

According to data obtained from ch-aviation, A6-EVK is 4.4 years old, having been delivered to Emirates in December 2019. It is configured to seat 484 passengers in a four-class layout (14 in first class, 76 in business class, 56 in premium economy and 338 in economy). The aircraft is powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. 

Although the reason for the diversion has not been revealed, the decision to divert to Bengaluru is not as eye-opening as one might imagine. The airport is a regular destination for the Emirates A380 fleet, with the airline having commenced operations there with its superjumbos back in October 2022.  

The daily Emirates services to Bengaluru using the A380 use flight numbers EK568 and EK569. The decision to divert EK412 there will undoubtedly have been based on the fact that the station is already an A380 destination, will have staff and ground equipment familiar with dealing with A380s, and it is also likely that an engineering crew would have been available should the issue have been technical in nature.   

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the same day, an Air Canada Boeing 777 en route from Frankfurt (FRA) to Toronto (YYZ) with flight number AC843 diverted to Dublin (DUB) due to a medical emergency onboard.  

Once again, the decision to divert to Dublin would largely have been based on the fact that it is already an Air Canada station. The flight later resumed its flight bound for Toronto.