Cucuotto
I think there needs to be some balance in this debate
1. Can't really comment on the legality of the contract, but i can't imagine for one minute that NLH will get involved in some thing that is illegal it would be illogical to do so and very sort term?
2. No one really knows whether long haul low cost will work from Europe, but the fact that no one has done it successfully before means very little.
3. The NAS product is closer to legacy airline product in terms of customer service and much better than some or indeed most of the other Lo Co products on offer
4. The NLH has premium seating available and even the economy seating is better in terms of leg room than the like of say Monarch/Tui product
5. There clearly have been some start up problems and perhaps the Thai crew don't/didn't think outside the box in the way that European crew would have reacted to situations such as lack of a credit card, indeed this happens on the NAS network from time to time, remember that some of NAS so called short haul sectors run to nearly 7 hours so JFK-OSL is not much longer
6. Costs well one thing is for sure you cannot pay Norwegian or indeed Danish/Swedish employment costs, wages and employers social costs and fly Loco let alone compete with Asian carriers, I make no judgement on the rights or wrongs of Asian employment T&C's but if you allow unfettered access to Europe from the far East & Middle East, then the pressure that BA/IB KLM/AF DLH are currently seeing is only the tip of the ice berg, for joe public will look at cost and value and NAS have demonstrated in Norway that even paying all the Norwegian employment taxes that they are profitable in part because SAS is/was so inefficient.
My bet is that Long Haul will work for Norwegian and that the messy side of the contracts will be resolved and the announcement of a USA base opening this Autumn points to that, NLH have until the end of the year to sort out these issues or face a ban flying long haul out of Norway, Mr Norwegian as you call him is no fool or MOL and would much prefer to have LN on the aircraft rather than EI, Norway currently has a left centre Government more akin in some ways to an old style UK Labour Government and an election before the year out may change that, they need to get a grip on wages in Norway, it might be a rich country, but €30k a year for flipping burgers is just silly.
Thankfully its not my money in play, but fascinating all the same.....