Fliers face trouble at airport as ground handling staff go on

A section of ground handling staff of AISATS has gone on a strike demanding salary hike and reinstatement of one of their colleagues,causing inconvenience to fliers as delivery of baggage to them was delayed.
The strike started last night due to which airlines who have taken services of AISATS were facing problems in timely loading and unloading of baggage and delivery of luggage to passengers, an airline official at the airport said.
Among the worst affected was Air India, whose baggage handling is done by AISATS.
"We have deployed some of our staff to tackle the situation, but as the number of baggage is large we are finding it difficult to handle the situation," the official said.

The employees went on strike after one of their colleagues was suspended by the management over alleged under-performance.
The employees are demanding immediate reinstatement of their colleague and also a hike in their salary.

Meanwhile, AISATS in a statement said it was unable to meet the "unjust" demands of the employees and requested them to return to work.
"At AISATS, our employees' interests are of paramount importance and our endeavour has always been to work together with our employees towards achieving mutual growth.
However, we cannot comply with unjust demands, and therefore request our employees to resume their duties immediately to avoid any further inconvenience to passengers," the statement said.

"In the interim, we have put into place adequate contingency measures to ensure the continued operations of all airline handling services and thus minimise disruption," it added.