The opening of the new greenfield airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad could land turn out to be a bitter pill for employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) working at the two existing airports. A total of about 600 employees of the two airports would have to be shifted out to other airports owned by AAI since the new international airports would be owned by private consortia.

However, air traffic control (ATC) employees will continue to work at the new airports. Interestingly, their numbers will increase as the new airports will be busier than the existing ones and require more air traffic controllers (ATCO). Besides them, customs and immigration staff as well as the security, manned by the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force), will remain same but with added strength.

The Hyderabad airport may see some more employees remaining at the existing Begumpet airport as it will be housing a new ATCO training centre, a senior official of the civil aviation ministry told Deccan Herald on Friday. There is no contractual obligation for the new airport owners to absorb the AAI employees. However, on their own, some of the employees have quit the AAI and joined the two airports including a then airport director of Bangalore’s HAL airport.

AAI employees, across the country, struck work earlier this week, demanding among other things the retaining of the existing airports. Said the senior official: “Their demand that these two airports should be retained is not possible because we are contract-bound. However, these employees, except the air traffic controllers, will be redeployed elsewhere. At the Begumpet airport where non-commercial activities take place, we may require a few employees to maintain some facilities.”

Unlike in these two airports, the owners of the airports undergoing modernisation at Delhi and Mumbai can absorb the AAI staff as per the contract. However, the employees’ response is not encouraging as only 250 employees from these two airports have so far joined the consortia — the GMR-led DIAL at Delhi and GVK-led MIAL at Mumbai. This is a paltry figure considering that the two airports employ a total of 4,500 AAI staffers.
The employees still have some time to make their decisions. If they don’t join the consortia, they will have to be relocated at the other AAI airports.

The issue may get serious, now that the AAI Employees’ Joint Forum has given an ultimatum to the ministry to decide the issue. Forum convener M K Ghoshal said: “We have informed the ministry that they should decide the issue by February 22. Otherwise, I can service any kind of notice including closure of airports.”

Asked why the Forum was protesting now and not for the last three years, Ghoshal said the employees were hopeful that the ministry would listen to them.

“The last letter we gave was on December 12, 2007 but so far, there is no response from Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. For the Delhi and Mumbai airports, the clause of absorbing employees was not there at the time of tendering. It was later added at the time of signing contract, without involving the employees.”