NAIROBI, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Kenya’s main aviation union said it would call a strike from next Monday over a proposed deal with an Indian company to develop the country’s biggest airport – industrial action that could cause major disruption in the east 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 (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) to Adani Airport Holdings of India” in a seven-day strike notice issued on Monday.
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.
An Adani Group spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Any walkout could also cause significant disruption to national carrier Kenya Airways.
“We shall reconsider our intention to engage in industrial action … 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.
The KAA confirmed on Monday that it had received a strike notice. “We are hopeful that a resolution can be reached through negotiation,” spokesperson Elijah Miano said.
The authority has said Adani would add a second runway at JKIA and upgrade the passenger terminal.
Kenya Airways Chief Executive Allan Kilavuka did not respond to a request for comment.
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 $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.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Additional reporting by Aditya Kalra and Dhwani Pandya;Writing by Hereward Holland and Elias Biryabarema;Editing by Alexander Winning and Andrew Heavens)
