Come on guys. Use your brain. Norwegian is a Norwegian company listed in the Oslo Stock Exchange with the headquarters in Oslo. The corporate profits are taxed in Norway. The company, like many large companies, has a number of subsidiaries. The employees in those subsidiaries are employed on local contracts and pay their taxes and social security in the local country. Exactly the same as employees in easyJet, IAG, Citibank, Ford, Airbus, etc etc. Local AOCs are not a cost saving issue but a mechanism to gain the right to fly to third countries - ever heard of the Chicago Convention? An airline cannot just choose to fly from a third country to another third country outside the EU just like that. You cannot use the Siberian corridor just like that. Rusia might allow a "Swedish" carrier but not an "Irish" carrier for example.
A crew member is based in London Gatwick and operates from London, where would you expect them to be contracted, in Oslo? where would they pay income tax and social security, In Oslo? of course not. They pay their taxes and SS in the UK as it should be. Their employment is subject to UK law. Much as an easyJet pilot based in Paris pays their tax and is em ployed in France or a Citibank cashier working in Munich in employed in Germany. That is the proper way to do it. Not to be confused with companies that provide an employment contract based in a country nowhere near where the crew member is based with the sole purpose of avoiding labour legislation and tax avoidance - I won't name any names here but how about W and R
Does that mean the company is not Norwegian? of course not. The company headquarters are in Norway and the companies profits are taxed in Norway. Exactly the same setup as every other large corporation out there.
So who should rescue what part? When Ford and GM got into trouble in the last crisis who bailed them out? the US treasury - but they have employees, factories, dealers, etc all over the world? yes but is a US company and the US bailed them out because it considered the economic fallout of letting them go to the wall was higher than the cost of bailing them out. When we had the flood in the UK a few months ago who got government help? just those employed by wholly owned and headquartered UK companies? no - everyone that lived in the affected area. When Honda decides to close a factory in the UK who comes and stumps a pile of cash to try to keep it open? the UK treasury, why? because they want to protect local jobs. So in this case Norway may bail the "company" out but individual countries are bailing the local employees out.
Last edited by calypso; 18th Apr 2020 at 09:13.