The employees of Hyderabad airport at Begumpet are opposing the closure of the airport which is scheduled to happen on March 16. The new international airport at Shamshabad becomes operational on the same day.
Agitated employees of the Airports Authority of India Employees Union went on a flash strike on Tuesday even as the first trial flights landed at Shamshabad.

They confined Airport Director R K Singla to his cabin for more than five hours. More than 60 members of the AAI Employees’ Union staff staged a protest in front of Singla’s cabin demanding that the existing airports at Begumpet and in Bangalore be continued for domestic travel while the newly-constructed international airports could be for international travel.

Meanwhile, a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the AP High Court by former IAS officer B V P Rao makes out a case for a second airport in Hyderabad.

“As a second airport (Begumpet) could continue to function and serve for more than 20 to 25 years,” Rao contends in the petition.

“Available infrastructural facility like the existing Begumpet airport in Hyderabad cannot be permitted to be frittered away and go to seed,” he says in the petition filed in the HC last week. He cites several examples of cities having more than one airport. For instance, New York has five airports, Los Angeles has four and London three. Even a developing country like Kenya has two airports in Nairobi, its capital city.

     Currently, it generates revenue of Rs 150 crores for the Airports Authority of India. The petition maintains that the only reason why Begumpet airport is being shut down is due to “commercial considerations,” of Hyderabad International Airport Ltd, a public-private enterprise that will run the new airport at Shamshabad.
“The duty of the state and the Centre is to ensure that a facility beneficial to the general public is not sacrificed at the “altar of commercial profit” for HIALa, he says.