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The Kenya Aviation Workers Union said on Monday that employees of Kenya Airways and Kenya Airports Authority would go on strike from August 19 over an investment proposal from an Indian company, Adani Airport Holdings, at the country’s main airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
The Kenya Aviation Workers Union said on Monday that employees of Kenya Airways and Kenya Airports Authority would go on strike from August 19 over an investment proposal from an Indian company, Adani Airport Holdings, at the country’s main airport. The strike would likely cause significant disruption to Kenya’s national carrier, Kenya Airways, and to the operations of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, a key African travel hub.
The Kenya Aviation Workers Union, which represents airport workers, said the proposed agreement announced last month with India’s Adani Airport Holdings would lead to job losses and bring in non-Kenyan workers. It called on the government to scrap what it referred to as the “unlawful intended sale of JKIA to Adani Airport Holdings of India”.
Kenya’s government has said the airport is not for sale and that no decision had been made on whether to proceed with what it called a proposed public-private partnership to upgrade the hub. The authority has said Adani would add a second runway at JKIA and upgrade the passenger terminal.
The Workers Union shall reconsider its intention to engage in protest only if the Adani Airport Holdings Limited’s deal is abandoned in its entirety, Kenya Aviation Workers Union Secretary General Moss Ndiema said in the strike notice. He repeated a call for the entire board of the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) to resign.
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The government said in a statement on the Adani proposal last month that JKIA was stretched beyond its capacity of 7.5 million passengers a year and in urgent need of improvements, citing incidents like leaking roofs which it said had caused “international embarrassment”. The statement said modernising JKIA could cost USD 2 billion, which the government was “constrained to fund due to the current tight fiscal situation”. It said Adani’s offer was currently being reviewed. If a deal is agreed, the government said there would be safeguards to ensure Kenya’s national interests are protected.
A nationwide youth-led protest movement that emerged in June over proposed tax hikes has also criticised a perceived lack of transparency over the proposed Adani deal. Last month police blocked protesters from accessing JKIA, which they had aimed to shut down.
