ISLAMABAD: The employees of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have moved Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the privatisation of three major airports by outsourcing their services.

Justice Aamer Farooq issued notices to the respondents for April 6 on the petition fi led by the Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) of the CAA employees.

The petitioners through their counsel Hafi z Arfat Ahmad challenged the process the CAA initiated to privatise the New Islamabad International Airport, Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore and Jinnah International Airport Karachi.

Petition says move to outsource services at Karachi, Lahore and new Islamabad airports has caused insecurity among employees

The counsel told the court that the CAA offered the interested companies to control the airport operation and management, administration and maintenance of the buildings, allied infrastructure, equipment, systems and other facilities besides ground handling services and future expansions of the airport infrastructure, including runways, taxiways, car parking etc.

He said the unexpected news concerning the privatisation of the three major airports, where a major part of the CAA workforce was deployed, had created a serious sense of insecurity among thousands of employees.

The employees were surprised as to why major components of a profit yielding organisation were being privatised. He said the financial performance report of the CAA for 2015-16 showed that it earned over Rs50 billion during the period.

He argued that Section 6 of the CAA Ordinance stated that the authority shall have control over all the civil airports of the country.

He said when the legislative provisions itself contemplated that the control of civil airports was to remain with the CAA it could not have issued an advertisement seeking applications/proposals from companies.

The CAA in connivance with other respondents has decided to accommodate some influential group, he alleged, adding the decision to privatise the three airports had not been taken by the CAA management rather the management had been directed to initiate such a process. The petition said the sovereign rights on air can only be ensured when the administrative and operational control of the airports was retained by the state.

By entrusting the same to a private corporate, the entity will seriously jeopardise the situation.

It said the subject of privatisation of any state owned enterprise basically falls within the purview of the Privatisation Commission of Pakistan. The process initiated by the CAA itself is legally not permitted.

The petition said aviation was directly linked to the safety and security of Pakistan. Through the impugned advertisement, it said, the CAA had quite surprisingly decided to entrust its core function to a private entity.

The privatisation of the three airports would render the CAA employees surplus leading to the end of their jobs, the petition said.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2017