Airports Authority of India (AAI) and security agencies held an emergency meeting here today to chalk out a contingency plan to deal with the 48-hour all-India strike at airports beginning from midnight tonight, hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to land here for electioneering.
A high-level meeting was held at the NSC Bose International Airport ahead of the strike, called by CITU-affiliated Airports Authority Employees' Unions, to draw up a contingency plan to deal with the strike which, AAI sources feared, might lead to a total collapse of airport services.
The union's general secretary, Dipankar Ghosh, said the strike, called simultaneously at all airports, was in protest against alleged retrenchment of temporary staff, arbitrary transfer and compulsory retirement schemes for employees.
Ghose, however, said flight schedules would not be affected as also the functioning of the air traffic control (ATC). He said 3,000 union members here would join the strike along with 15,000 of their members all over the country.
He alleged AAI had resorted to retrenchment of temporary staff engaged in modernisation schemes in Delhi and Chennai airports.