Kenyan airport strike causing delays and cancellations

via X

A strike by workers at Kenya's main international airport in Nairobi has caused flight delays and cancellations for both departing and arriving passengers, Kenya Airways said on Wednesday. 

The biggest union of Kenya's aviation workers said they would take industrial action on Wednesday over a proposed deal for India's Adani Group to lease Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for 30 years.

The Kenya Aviation Workers Union, which represents airport workers, said the proposed agreement announced in July would lead to job losses and bring in non-Kenyan workers.

Kenya's government has said the airport is operating above capacity and needs modernising but that it is not for sale.

It says that no decision has been made on whether to proceed with what it calls a proposed public-private partnership to upgrade the site.

Videos shared on the social media platform X showed hundreds of passengers queuing outside JKIA's single terminal after the strike began at midnight on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, dozens of airport workers blew plastic trumpets and chanted "Adani must go", according to footage on local broadcaster Citizen TV, which also showed a police officer hitting a protester with a baton.

Kenya's high court on Monday temporarily blocked the Adani proposal, in which the Indian company would build a new runway and upgrade the passenger terminal, to allow time for a judicial review challenging the lease.

More from International

  • North Korea to cut road and rail links to South Korea

    North Korea's Army said it will completely cut off roads and railways connected to South Korea starting from Wednesday, and fortify the areas on its side of the border, state media KCNA reported. 

  • Nobel prize in physics goes to machine learning pioneers

    US scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries and inventions that laid the foundation for machine learning, the award-giving body said on Tuesday.

  • Israel begins ground operations in southwest Lebanon

    Israel's military said it had begun ground operations in southwest Lebanon, expanding its incursions to a new zone, a year after exchanges of fire began with armed group Hezbollah and after pleas by the U.N. for a diplomatic solution.

  • India PM Modi's party leads in Haryana election

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) moved into the lead in elections in the northern state of Haryana on Tuesday, reversing early trends when it was trailing the main opposition Congress party, TV channels reported.

  • Russia maintains emergency hotline with West

    Russia said it still had an emergency hotline with the US and the NATO military alliance to deflate crises, as nuclear risks rose to its greatest level since the depths of the Cold War.