787 Dreamliners transferred from NLH to NAS
 

press release from Norwegian

Norwegian has today received approval from The Civil Aviation Authority in Norway to move all of its 787 aircraft from the Norwegian subsidiary Norwegian Long Haul (NLH) to Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS). One 787 Dreamliner will, as before, remain in Norwegian Air International (NAI).

There are several reasons why Norwegian has chosen to make this move, says Geir Steiro, Norwegian’s COO; new EASA regulations, the need for an overflight permit from Russia and the fact the NAS already has the approval to fly between Europe and the U.S.

Another reason for the transfer is the need for overflight permit from Russia. The Russian authorities do not allow wetlease over Russian airspace, and while NLH is a wet lease operator, NAS is not. This means that we hopefully soon will be allowed to fly over Russian airspace en route to Bangkok, which will save 40-50 minutes per flight with the Dreamliner because we will not have to take the detour around the Crimean peninsula,” Geir continues.

With this transfer, the aircraft will be placed in an AOC with permission from the U.S. authorities. Also NLH has had this permit, while our Irish subsidiary Norwegian Air International is still waiting for the approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Norwegian has not considered applying for registration in Norway. All our long-haul aircraft will remain on Irish register.

one of the consequences is that we do not have to wait for the DOT approval.

Good to see Norwegian retreating. Now the pressure needs to be kept on them.

How dare these next generation locos take away passengers from the precious US majors?

Is this true? it sounds very strange.

"Retreating"? Hardly, they just placed the 787s in a subsidiary that already has approval to fly to the US.:=

NAI:An pernicious scheme to circumvent the labor laws ands tax administrations of numerous countries, which violates the US/EU open skies agreement.

Wet and damp lease OPS are allowed over Rusian airspace. Or at least they were in 2011 when I last operated a wet leased aircraft through Russia.

However, the a/c will be operated by NAS not NAI.

And as a US based Cabin Crew for Norwegian. We're not going anywhere

Why on earth are there Europeans on here complaining about the United States trying to squash a scheme by a slimy CEO to have a European flag of convenience but not staff the airline with Europeans following local labor laws? :ugh:

Calling him "slimey" isn't going to help anyone. He's a shrewd entrepreneur, creative, and yes, he tries to find some loopholes on intercontinental flights to exploit to his advantage... Yet I don't think he's totally unreasonable about everything, or "slimey". Norway-based staff have ok contracts as far as I know, also compared with SAS, the flag carrier. By far not the worst loco actually.

And of course his next move is to lobby the new conservative government of Norway to allow what the previous labour govt denied him...(circumventing norwegian labour law). So unions will have a job to do there. He's tough, I don't think he's retreating yet.

What exactly have they done wrong?
 

What laws are Norwegian breaking? Creating convoluted and creative corporate structures is hardly anything new, nor unique. Plenty of multinationals hiding the cash in Ireland and the Netherlands.

That some on here don't like what they pay. Well don't work for them. (A little perusing seems to indicate that their T&C aren't that bad)

Seems much more like they represent a threat to the established players who are creating smoke to cover up deficiencies in their own product.

I have a dog in the fight as I have a RT enhanced economy ticket from JFK to Oslo for August. Fully refundable/changeable for $ 1600 on a new 787. If they want to sell tickets for that price and figure they can make money , who am I to say no.

20driver
 

Actually they done nothing wrong, unfortunately most Americans are fairly ignorant when it comes to affairs outside of uncle Sam's back yard, most couldn't even place Norway on a map!!

Much of the union hype against Norwegian centres on so called by passing of Norway's labour laws, its not the laws that's the problem its social and employments costs in Norway that are eye watering, to put it in simple American terms we pay around $50000 pa to kids flipping burgers at the M add social taxes and the cost to the employers is around $90k, put simply if we employed all our employee's on Norwegian soil we'd be bust and Boeing would be down on 16 787 sales 100 B738 sales 150 B738MAX sales and options for another 100.....

Our worst paid staff are probably Spanish cabin crew, they earn less than the Thai cabin crew and way less than the American cabin crew, but that is supply and demand due to very high unemployment levels in Spain.

Off course its not all roses in the Norwegian garden, but there are far far worse companies to work for in Europe and if the Americans want to study convoluted employment methods they should look no further than Boeings biggest 738 customer based in, yep Ireland, when they start flying long haul and they will then you won't know what hit you.

So it seems that the DoT now have the fudge needed

Russian overflight wet lease.

SAS made a big fuss last year about knocking Norwegian's so called environmentally friendly B787 by pointing out that because the B787 we're in effect wet leased from NLH to NAS they couldn't overfly Russian airspace and the extra track miles flown by NAS/NLH aircraft offset any emission saving advantage that Norwegian had over SAS's much older long haul aircraft:ugh::ugh:

Why would you? You get paid like a regional flight attendant, and don't have to fly six legs a day on a RJ or turboprop. You get to spend nights in Stockholm instead of Gulfport, Mississippi.

B787 cockpit crew operationally based in BKK. I assume NAI provides Thai resident visa and work permit?

Regardless of what you think of Norwegian's cost-cutting tactics, the fact that US carriers are lobbying regulators to stop Norwegian's plans doesn't make them look very good, imho. I can understand and respect ALPA and SWAPA motivations, but US carriers should rather be promoting their own product, than trying to block competitors from entering. A bit off topic.

@LNIDA
Don't confuse ignorance with indifference. I bet the average Norwegian or Brit couldn't place Guinea-Bissau on the map without using that fine American product called Google Maps. :ok:

Yes LDINA, employment and income tax is high in Norway. But my understanding is NLH won't pay any employer tax (or pension or anything else) for its pilots anywhere! I assume you're a pilot with them so maybe you can tell us more.

If you ever get to work for a proper airline you will understand what NLH is doing wrong.

I find it highly amusing our friends across the Atlantic asking 'why don't the Europeans do something'.

What happened when we questioned the fact that U.S. Corporations place themselves in Europe under advantageous tax regimes i.e. Starbucks, Amazon and therefore pay little or no tax here in the U.K. yet making a lot of money.

And regards to what they are paid, I seem to recall articles about pay grades at U.S. regional s.

It is just an attempt at protectionism and over hypocritical.

Pwalhx
 

A good point well made !