Kenya’s main aviation union said on Monday it was calling a strike from early next week to demand the scrapping of a proposed deal with India’s Adani Airport Holdings to develop the east African country’s main airport.
Any walkout could cause significant disruption to national carrier Kenya Airways and to operations at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), a key regional travel hub.
The Kenya Aviation Workers Union said the proposed deal would lead to job losses and bring in non-Kenyan workers. It also described it an “unlawful intended sale of JKIA to Adani Airport Holdings of India” in its seven-day strike notice issued on Monday.
The government has said the airport is not for sale and that no agreement has been reached on what it has described as a proposed public-private partnership to upgrade the airport.
“We shall reconsider our intention to engage in industrial action … only if the Adani Airport Holdings Limited’s deal is abandoned in its entirety,” Moss Ndiema, the union’s secretary general, said.
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has said Adani would add a second runway at JKIA and upgrade the passenger terminal.
The authority 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.
Kenya Airways Chief Executive Allan Kilavuka did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A nationwide youth-led protest movement that emerged in June over proposed tax hikes has also criticised what it says is a lack of transparency over the proposed Adani deal.
Last month police blocked protesters from accessing JKIA, which they had aimed to shut down.
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.
