Over 18,000 AAI employees plan protest

Protest action plan against Civil Aviation Ministry's move to hand over operation and management of six AAI-developed airports to the private sector

Over 18,000 employees of Airports Authority of India (AAI) have started a protest action plan against the Civil Aviation Ministry's move to hand over operation and management of six AAI-developed airports to the private sector, union leaders said today.

While the staffers have started wearing black badges since yesterday, leaders of Airports Authority Employees Union and other unions would soon meet to chalk out a long-drawn action plan which would include gate meetings, hunger strike and demonstrations, finally culminating in a nationwide strike, union leaders, requesting anonymity, said here.

The ministry is going ahead with handing over the operation, management and development of six AAI airports at Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Guwahati on a public-private partnership basis.

"This rabid privatisation would only benefit private parties and a few politicians in the country. They are handing over these airports, which have already been modernised and upgraded by the AAI by spending public money," they said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured the AAI unions in 2006 that "only Delhi and Mumbai airports will be privatised and rest will be developed by the AAI".

Observing that the government privatised Mumbai and Delhi airports leading the AAI to lose considerable revenue, they said doling out another six government airports, which have high traffic, to private companies and deprive AAI cannot be allowed. This amounts to shutting down a government undertaking from the back door," the union leaders said.

They said airport charges and user fees have gone up "almost six times since 2006 when Delhi and Mumbai airports were privatised and "the burden has eventually fallen on the passengers".

The private operators of these two major metro airports have "created subsidiaries due to which AAI is not getting its full share. So what is the guarantee that other private players will not resort to the same practices which would hit AAI hard", they said.