Just a few questions for you Skipness One Echo: What about Russian Transaero flying their aircraft with Irish registration? And then there is Aeroflot with their aircraft registered in Bermuda? I guess Transaero has Russian crews, i.e. non-EU crew.
Completely different situation - Russian AOC, Russian crew, aircraft are leased from an EU company.
Norwegian 787's are operating on an Irish AOC (i.e. EU based) but non-EU crews. The (non-aviation) based company I work for couldn't do that, are airlines different?