New Delhi Dec. 19 : GMR-run Delhi International Airport (P) Limited (DIAL) today offered to absorb all the general employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) working at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.

It also announced the construction of a 4,430-metre runway for the Airbus 380 by 2008.

The Delhi international airport was taken over by a consortium comprising GMR Group, Fraport AG, Malaysia Airport and IDF, on condition that it offers to absorb at least 60 per cent of the employees at the airport.

However, airport workers had earlier gone on strike fearing job loss.

There are, according to a GMR press release, still apprehensions among workers of job insecurity, if only 60 per cent of the employees were taken. The employees are also concerned about being posted outside Delhi, in case they are not absorbed by the new management.

The new job offer will see all employees being offered two increments on their basic salary, in their current scale, a one time lump sum joining bonus, revised pay and allowances due from January 2007, protection of all existing benefits, designation, welfare measures, general conditions and leave entitlement and better opportunities to upgrade skills.

Reacting to the offer, the AAI Employees’ Joint Forum general secretary M.K. Ghoshal said the AAI act did not permit the transfer of any employee from the authority to any other organisations.

The release added that as part of a master plan for the modernisation of Indira Gandhi International Airport, which has recently been sent to the civil aviation ministry, DIAL will construct a new runway by 2008 to supplement the existing two.

This runway which will be 4,430-metre long will be capable of hosting the huge Airbus 380 or aircraft of its type.