The move of the central government to privatise Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Ahmedabad has been strongly opposed by the Airport Authority Employees Union. The Airport Employees organised massive protest demonstrations in front of AAI offices demanding that the privatisation move should be dropped.

It is to be mentioned here that all these airports which are now managed by the Airport Authority of India has been modernised with improved infrastructure by spending more than Rs. 50,000 crore. There is no need as such for further modification or spending money at present. The government’s move is only to favour private companies to get the benefit from running the airports. All these four airports are profitable. There are many airports under AAI which are loss making and the same is compensated by the profit making airports.

The Government has already privatised the most profitable airports in the country, viz. Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The air-travellers are compelled to pay airport charges, which was not there when these were managed by AAI. Everything in the airports like tea, coffee, stationary, parking  etc. have become more costly after privatisation.  This will  repeat in the new privatised airports also.

The privatisation of airports is completely against the interests of workers, travellers and the country. It is only to maximise the profit of the private companies  by acquiring the well maintained airports. Strong opposition should come from the people and opposition political parties.