Hundreds of passengers are stranded at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport after flights were disrupted following a strike by aviation workers over a management row.
This follows a strike notice issued on the February 27, 2019, where the workers opposed the handover of management of the airport to Kenya Airways.
The Kenya Airports Authority workers say the plans will render most of them jobless and want the plan to be discarded.
The strike caught many passengers by surprise and has led to a crisis at one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s busiest airports.
Long queues have formed at the airport’s gates, with some sources indicating that some of the airport’s entry points had been closed by the workers on go-slow, prompting a heavy deployment of police.
Fire engines have also been withdrawn from some runways, with planes that were supposed to leave the East African aviation hub remaining grounded.
Hundreds of passengers are stranded at the airport after their flights were delayed or rescheduled, with many taking to social media to vent their frustration.
On Wednesday morning, police engaged in running battles with the striking workers and lobbed teargas canisters to disperse them.
Some passengers were caught in the fracas that left six KQ staff members seriously injured.
No plane has landed at the largest airport in Kenya and East Africa since 3am, with a Rwanda Air plane that was supposed to pick up passengers leaving empty.
By 8am, tens of flights into and out of the airport had also been hit by the job boycott that is threatening to paralyse air transport in the country.
The flight schedule on the Kenya Airports Authority website showed that at least six inbound flights, which were set to land between 1.55am and 6.59am, were still marked ‘scheduled’.
Similarly, at least 26 outbound flights were still marked scheduled several hours after they should have departed.
The grounded JKIA flights have also affected operations at the Mombasa and Kisumu airports.