Flights from airports across India operated largely on schedule Thursday, but litter piled up at airports as a strike by airport workers entered its second day, news reports said, according to dpa. More than 15,000 government employees responded to the "non-cooperation" call by the Airport Authority Employees Joint Forum, an umbrella organization of left-wing unions, and stayed away from work from midnight Tuesday. Most of these workers are employed in the housekeeping, ground safety and engineering departments. The strike was called in support of the demand that existing airports in the southern cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad should continue operations after alternate new airports become operational. The new airport in Hyderabad is scheduled to begin operations on Saturday and the one in Bangalore in April. The forum is against the privatization of airports and fear the closing down of the old airports may lead to many employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), a government body, losing their jobs. After initially taking a tough stand, the federal Civil Aviation Ministry reached out to the agitating employees on Thursday assuring them that the old airports in Hyderabad and Bangalore would be used for "general aviation" and the employees had need not worry about their future, PTI news agency reported. "The (existing) airports are not being closed down. They will be used for general aviation," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel was quoted as saying. The term general aviation refers to non-scheduled operations of private aircraft or chartered services generally using small aircraft. Under the government's agreement with the builders of the new airports, the old ones cannot be used for commercial flights after the new ones start operating. "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)," Patel said. The minister said new airports had to be constructed in national interest and urged the employees to withdraw their agitation in the interest of the nation and the travelling public. The strike had no impact on international or domestic flight schedules at the Delhi airport, but used coffee cups, empty water bottles and waste paper could be seen scattered on floors and passengers complained of dirty toilets, PTI reported. It was the same story for Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore airports, with flights operating on time with the support of workers from private companies for baggage handling, but garbage piling up with the most maintenance workers joining the strike.
