New Delhi: Airport employees on Thursday night called off their two-day long agitation following Government assurance that no airport would be closed without consulting them.
The employees, agitating against closure of Bangalore and Hyderabad airports, were reassured by Civil Aviation Minister Praful patel that modernisation of 35 non-metro airports will be undertaken with ‘full involvement’ of the Airports Authority of India.
The decision to end their agitation was announced by M K Ghoshal, convenor of the AAI Employees Joint Forum after a 45-minute meeting with Patel.
After talking tough, Government reached out to the agitating employees assuring them that the old airports in Hyderabad and Bangalore would be used for general aviation and they have ‘nothing to worry about their future’.
"The (existing) airports are not being closed down. They will be used for general aviation (apart from defence purposes and national emergencies)," Patel said.
"Keeping in mind the interests of all sections, we will try to find a way out of the legal problems in the future, speak to the operators (of the greenfield airports),” he said.
Flight operations remained unaffected across the country on Thursday but litter piled up at many airports in the wake of the agitation, which began at midnight on Tuesday.
Patel said he had explained to the agitating workers that Government has ‘certain commitments’ with the developers of the new airports and Bangalore and Hyderabad "within the framework of whatever is possible because the matter is before the court and there are contractual agreements also".
The minister said the employees were apprehensive that with the privatisation of airports, the financial viability of the AAI would be jeopardised.
"I assured them that interests of AAI and its employees will not be affected. In fact, we will try to make AAI more profitable," he said.
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