Originally Posted by
diffident
Those moves are more to do with the registered location of assets for taxation and financial reporting reasons moreso than to do with potential changes and/or problems with aviation regulations.
Incorrect unfortunately, as already described by others. As there are more costs involved and worse taxation arrangements due to the complexity and duplicity, as well as crews being not allowed to operate each others fleet without transition courses in place. The logistical nightmare is also much more costly than the solution of maintaining a single regulatory agency involved. The ONLY reason Ryanar has done this is to remain active in UK domestic market in all scenarios. Depending on aviation arrangements agreed during Brexit, there may be many more registrations to follow (possibly all UK based aircraft and crews to transition onto UK AOC).
Originally Posted by
diffident
Easyjet's moves, as you've mentioned, are because in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the tariffs that would become due would be astronomical. It makes perfect sense to operate their European flights from a European-based subsidiary for that reason. Ryanair are doing slightly the reverse, in that they have recently established a UK subsidiary which will pay its taxes to the UK Government for any declared UK business activities, as opposed to the current setup where it pays all of its taxes to the Irish Government. Again, I suspect this is a tariff avoidance scheme.
Incorrect unfortunately again, easyJet would NOT BE ALLOWED to operate intra Eu flights unless flown on an EU register, as these rights are not granted through the Brexit divorce arrangements, they are fundamentals of EU membership which the UK decides to leave behind.