Hundreds of travelers have been stranded at Kenya’s largest airport, JKIA, following the strike by aviation workers against the planned leasing of the airport to India’s Adani Group.
Long crowds formed outside the airport on Wednesday after cancelation or delay of inbound and outbound flights.
The strike has been simmering for the past few weeks since the revelation of the unpopular government’s plan to lease the country’s main airport.
Last month, the Kenya Aviation Workers Union released a statement opposing the deal between the government and the Indian conglomerate. The union called off an earlier strike planned for the start of September to allow a review of the deal.
The government has defended the deal as critical to modernize the facility and increase its capacity. Under this deal, the Indian Air Operator plans to construct an additional terminal and runway in exchange for running the airport for 30 years.
Talks between the government officials and KAWU to resolve the dispute yielded no results.
In a strike notice related to 11th September, KAWU advised workers at the airport to go on strike. According to the union, the strike responds to the Kenya Airports Authority’s failure to heed to their demands.
The union further statedthat KAA’s officials failed to exercise accountability and prudence when negotiating the deal.
Our action is further informed by the declaration by Adani in their impugned Privately Initiated Proposal (PIP) that upon buying off JKIA, they intend to lay off the majority of employees, bring in non-Kenyans to work in the project,” the notice read.
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Deal blocked
The development comes after Kenya’s high court on Monday temporarily blocked the execution of the Adani deal over JKIA.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Law Society of Kenya went to court seeking a stay of execution of the deal. In their applications, the two groups argued the country can independently raise the resources required to upgrade the airport.
