Norwegian Deny NAI / now DOT-approved

Hacker15e said:
Sidenote: Wasn't Delta Express only a 737 operation?
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Delta Express was, in fact, a 737-200 operation with mainline pilots and mainline flight attendants.

Delta Connection, however, are RJ's with lord knows whoever is subcontracted to fly them.
 
chrisreedrules said:
The thing that is scary to me about NAI, is that even if this gets struck down, it is really just the beginning. There will be more concerted and stronger pushes for this (and other) schemes to be brought to the US airline industry in the coming years.
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Truth.

"Lookit Emirates! I could fly in THAT from Fresno to Vegas with double miles?! Airline's hate 'em! 12 year old BLASTS antiquated FAA rules! Eight sexy hacks for your next business trip…"

I don't see a peaceable coexistence with relaxing cabotage laws. Check out how "well" QANTAS is doing. Or is it Qantas? It's an acronym anyway… Aww, Riddle English...
 
Where's the call to action about regional pay and qol? There is none, regional pilots pay alpa dues and their low pay essentially subsidize the mainlines bottomline. They should make this entirely about the flag of convenience issue and omit the pay, that's not the problem. Alpa has no problem driving wages down, so long as it isn't their bread and butter UAL/DAL.

Already done the call to action, notes, lettera, phone calls to friends with connections, I just wish Alpa wouldn't neglect regional as bad as they do.
 
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Ajax said:
Where's the call to action about regional pay and qol? There is none, regional pilots pay alpa dues and subsidize the mainlines. They should make this entirely about the flag of convenience issue and omit the pay, that's not the problem. Alpa has no problem driving wages down, so long as it isn't their bread and butter UAL/DAL.

Already done the call to action, notes, lettera, phone calls to friends with connections, I just wish Alpa wouldn't neglect regional as bad as they do.
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Lol. Actually mainline subsidizes ALPA regionals, as 1.9% of regional wages does not cover the cost of running an MEC. Also, and this is ignored conveniently by regional pilots, the pot from which you draw your pay is fixed. It cannot increase in size without threatening the very model that regionals exist as.
 
Ajax said:
Where's the call to action about regional pay and qol?
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Hate to break it to you but if this goes down the way NAI and the rest of the foreign entities want it to, you're not going to have to worry about regional pay.

The Oruks have breached the keep but the Trolls are flatulent. Which is the immediate threat?
 
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SpiceWeasel said:
Lol. Actually mainline subsidizes ALPA regionals, as 1.9% of regional wages does not cover the cost of running an MEC. Also, and this is ignored conveniently by regional pilots, the pot from which you draw your pay is fixed. It cannot increase in size without threatening the very model that regionals exist as.
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Don't misinterpret the point I was making. While poorly worded, what I was saying is that by paying feed minuscule amounts it increases margins. However, I don't think that regionals are paying so poorly because they want to out of greed or anything--the mainlines control the money and supply of flying. It's a slim margin industry and if they paid regional pilots too much more there wouldn't be an operational benefit of having them. It's a busted system.

Derg said:
Hate to break it to you but if this goes down the way NAI and the rest of the foreign entities want it to, you're not going to have to worry about regional pay.

The Oruks have breached the keep but the Trolls are flatulent. Which is the immediate threat?
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I don't disagree, and I've already gone through the proper avenues to express my displeasure with NAI. My fear is that given the legal aspects and foreign trade deals I'm not sure if there is a legal basing to deny the request. Which sucks, for all of us. I hope it can get turned down, again.

My real issue is that there is such a big fuss about this, meanwhile regional wages have been driven down for years and not a big fuss about it. This is a threat to not just mainline, but all American airline plots, don't get me wrong. I just don't like the mention of downward pressure on wages and benefits as the problem, because that wasn't a problem when it benefited the mainline carriers at home.
 
its a bigger threat at this juncture.

Yes regional pay is abhorrent, but it's multiple times higher than at any other point in the history of aviation and luckily in this economy there are multiple opportunists to take advantage of movement at carriers higher up the food chain.

However It won't simply be NAI, it'll break the door open for every Tom Dick and Harry foreign entrant and then it gets real cr... Well, pulling into the hotel, ciao!
 
@Ajax I need to call B.S. on your rant on regional/fee for departure pay.

Yes, the pay had been absolutely atrocious for a long time at the fee for departure carriers. But over the last few years, starting hourly wages are closer to $40.00 an hour than $30.00. Put simply, you can make due with first year pay at most fee for departure carriers now. Furthermore, ALPA had no control over the business model of the fee for departure airlines. As a matter of fact, many fee for departure airlines grew and upgrades quick to come by while legacies within ALPA were shrinking. You are seeing that scope choke is working and it is bleeding into the business models of the fee for departure airlines, but things aren't that bad at a majority of the fee for departure carriers today.

We all appreciate your stance on NAI, but your doom and gloom with ALPA and their handling of fee for departure carriers is better suited for 2008, not 2016.
 
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chrisreedrules said:
The thing that is scary to me about NAI, is that even if this gets struck down, it is really just the beginning. There will be more concerted and stronger pushes for this (and other) schemes to be brought to the US airline industry in the coming years.
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Yepp, that's the point. NAI is only the beginning. In a couple of years you are talking about Ryanair, Easyjet, Wizz etc. I don't have a clou about ALPLA etc in the US airline industry. But I know if this thing is going through, current regional pilots do not need to think about the "shiny wide body jets" and the "big bucks lifestyle". Because an erosion of T & C will happen at the Mayors/Legacies.

I had my "walk out" interview with our CP last Friday. After the official part we had a nice chat about several things. During this chat he said that they are looking close to NAI and started already the business plan based on a fleet of around 50 A330. And this is for me the frightening part...
 
Someone quick if you can, explain globalization to me. I'm kinda confounded, how the middle class with actions like NAI are being quickly targeted for elimination in this move toward globalization.
Everyone who isn't a 1% is a consumer, for corporations and their goods. We buy the products they sell. With the cost of living continually rising, and salaries that aren't. People for example today aren't as able to afford to buy goods/services like a house, long considered to be part of the American dream, like their parents and grandparents used too. Car prices are steadily rising above that which the "common" person can afford.(I read that the average car starting price worldwide is slowly rising to about $35-40k, which will soon price out some peoples ability to actually own a car.)

The middle class is under direct attack and quickly disappearing. If there is no middle class, if their is only the poor. How do we continue to be consumers, to corporations, when EVERYTHING is eventually going to be priced out of reach. I don't understand. Doesn't make sense. For corporations to continue to exist, and make a profit, there must be consumers to help fund their bottom line. No consumers, no corporations.

Confused. So someone please help.
 
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At the risk of sounding like a right-wing nut job (which believe me I am far from), some would say that the erosion of the middle class in the United States has been happening for a long time. And some might say that it will ultimately require more people to be dependent on the federal government for their needs. Which of course, puts more power in the federal governments hands.

Besides, some are already predicting that the US will lose something close to 30% of its current jobs to automation by 2030. Will that actually happen? I don't know.
 
Ajax said:
Where's the call to action about regional pay and qol? There is none, regional pilots pay alpa dues and their low pay essentially subsidize the mainlines bottomline. They should make this entirely about the flag of convenience issue and omit the pay, that's not the problem. Alpa has no problem driving wages down, so long as it isn't their bread and butter UAL/DAL.

Already done the call to action, notes, lettera, phone calls to friends with connections, I just wish Alpa wouldn't neglect regional as bad as they do.
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Ffd.alpa.org

Sign in and there is a call to action

Edit: just read it and its to prevent a reduction in the 1500 hr rule but addresses that it is a pay issue and not a pilot shortage
 
European Pilots Association on the topic:
https://www.eurocockpit.be/stories/...ropean-commission-pave-the-way-for-flags-of-c

US Department of Transportation and European Commission pave the way for “Flags of Convenience” in Aviation

With its decision to tentatively approve traffic rights for “Norwegian Air International” (NAI) the US Department of Transportation (DoT), together with the European Commission (EC) have opened the door and de facto laid out the welcome mat for “Flags of Convenience” in aviation. The US regulator’s decision has been pending for two years amid greater scrutiny on Norwegian’s employment practices and business model. The tentative approval now ignores the key provision of Article 17bis in the EU-US Open Skies agreement, and disregards important facts about NAI’s employment practices.

“This decision is an own goal”, says Dirk Polloczek, President of the European Cockpit Association (ECA). “In opening the door to this flag of convenience scheme, the US DoT and the EC have chosen to undermine their own airline industries and destroy decent jobs and the social rights of their own citizens. They appear instead to have looked out for the interests of a few CEOs that want to deny workers their rights and make a ‘quick buck’ at the expense of the rest of the responsible industry and society.”
He continues: “We fundamentally disagree with this decision, and will continue to work together with our colleagues in European and US aviation to challenge it and to argue that this tentative approval should not be made permanent, unless and until Norwegian has made clear and satisfactory commitments as to how and where NAI employs its flight and cabin crew.”

Despite already having trans-Atlantic flight rights from anywhere in Europe to the US, Norwegian chose Ireland to establish a new subsidiary – NAI – to avoid the social standards of Norway and to enable the company to use a very questionable hiring model.

The carrier has designed a scheme to engage pilots and cabin crew via a Singaporean postbox company and claims to base them in Bangkok. In fact, most of the pilots are based in Europe and operate out of European airports across the North Atlantic, but without being subject to relevant EU employee regulation. Cabin crew are from countries with very low labour standards engaged without residency or work permits in Europe.

The airline claims that NAI’s permit will “create thousands of new jobs”, omitting the fact that most are already part of the transatlantic operation running the last two years – based on a temporary Norwegian exemption – and that NAI’s ‘employment’ scheme will destroy many more quality European and US jobs than it creates.

“If you want to see the future of aviation, as the US DoT and the EC plan it, just look at today’s maritime industry. It is a world where operators choose to be regulated by countries with the weakest or even non-existent rules. Where the standards that have been developed over decades are sold out. Where companies feel free to place themselves beyond the taxes and obligations of the markets they benefit from”, says Jon Horne, Vice-President of ECA. “We will not just stand by and watch while our own government officials again fire the starting gun on this race to the bottom.”
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They probably promised more leg room so Chuck Schumer jumped in the NAI bandwagon.
 
Seggy said:
@Ajax I need to call B.S. on your rant on regional/fee for departure pay.

Yes, the pay had been absolutely atrocious for a long time at the fee for departure carriers. But over the last few years, starting hourly wages are closer to $40.00 an hour than $30.00. Put simply, you can make due with first year pay at most fee for departure carriers now. Furthermore, ALPA had no control over the business model of the fee for departure airlines. As a matter of fact, many fee for departure airlines grew and upgrades quick to come by while legacies within ALPA were shrinking. You are seeing that scope choke is working and it is bleeding into the business models of the fee for departure airlines, but things aren't that bad at a majority of the fee for departure carriers today.

We all appreciate your stance on NAI, but your doom and gloom with ALPA and their handling of fee for departure carriers is better suited for 2008, not 2016.
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I agree. The argument that there is no ability to pay more on Fee For Departure is simply false. AA president Scott Kirby told analysts last year that the 50 RJ was not dead due to two factors. Fuel prices were much lower and a more hidden cost; the rates that the regionals are paying for lease arrangements on the aircraft, were much lower. Kirby estimated that lease rates could be negotiated to be at least 2/3 lower on CRJ200 and ERJ 145 type aircraft that were near heavy maintenance times. An operator could leverage the market-place with the leaser. The leaser would accept a much lower rate to keep the aircraft in service, or have to send it to the desert to be converted into beer-cans.

The major carriers profit margins are such that a very small targeted increase in rates, that would go directly to pilots, would help solve the pilot staffing problem. Regional pilot and employee pay is flat, fuel costs are down dramatically and 50 RJ lease rates are much lower. There is room for more money at the regional feed level.

As far as new large RJ's go the finance rates are the lowest they have been in years. Carriers with good credit can finance at incredibly low rates. "When pressed, CEO Doug Parker has continually reaffirmed that it makes sense to take on additional debt when interest rates are under 4%, as he can earn a return above and beyond 4% on the debt." Seeking Alpha Apr. 21, 2016 3:37 AM ET
| About: American Airlines Group (AAL)

American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) said on Thursday it ordered 90 regional jets from Embraer SA (EMBR3.SA) and Bombardier Inc (BBDb.TO) in deals worth about $4 billion at list prices as it upgrades to a more efficient fleet to lower operating costs.

The new carrier, formed when AMR Corp and US Airways completed a merger this week, is buying 60 Embraer E175 planes valued at $2.5 billion, and 30 Bombardier CRJ900 NextGen planes worth about $1.42 billion.

American has options for an additional 40 Bombardier jets and another 90 Embraer planes.

If all of the options are exercised, the total deal value could top $9 billion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-americanairlines-order-embraer-shares-idUSBRE9BB0I920131212

In view of all the money that is flowing into the airline marketplace and the lower cost of leasing, financing and fuel, three major components of CASM, it is not a rational argument to say that Major Carriers cannot pay a slightly greater rate targeted directly at pilot pay to help fix the regional pilot shortage. There is too much money out there and the cost is small, if it is truly targeted correctly.
 
For what its worth I got this reply from my congressman:

Dear Mr. XXX:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Department of Transportation granting preliminary approval for Norwegian Air International to fly to the United States. Your opinions are invaluable to me, and I appreciate you taking the time to share them.
Our country was founded on free and open market values. So long as the Transportation Department ensures that Norwegian strictly abides by American safety and labor regulations, then I support Norwegian’s entry into the marketplace.
Thanks again for contacting me. Your suggestions are always welcome, and I hope you will continue to share them. Serving as your Congressman is an honor, and if I may ever be of assistance, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

XXX
Member of Congress
 
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