New Delhi: Employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) across the nation will go on a mass leave on August 17 and 18 in protest against privatisation of airports.
AAI Officers' Union is, however, still undecided on the mass leave protest.
The call for the strike came hours after the management of Delhi and Mumbai airports were transferred to private hands on the midnight of Wednesday.
AAI staffers belonging to engineering, communications, maintenance and ground handling under the banner of 14,000-member Airports Authority Employees Union (AAEU) will participate in the strike.
''We will be protesting against AAI employees being pushed to new joint venture companies which have been formed to modernise Delhi and Mumbai airports,'' said AAEU general secretary M K Ghoshal.
He said demonstrations will start at 0700 hrs, IST on August 17 and last till 1900 hrs the next day.
The GMR group-led joint venture – Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) – has taken over reins of the city airport from the AAI. Several senior AAI officers have resigned and joined DIAL.
As per the operations, maintenance and development agreement (OMDA), the joint venture will need to absorb 60 per cent of present airport employees.
Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told the Lok Sabha on Thursday that the decision to go in for private participation in modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports was taken to keep Airports Authority of India (AAI) free to develop 35 non-metro airports.
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