@Cloud Surfer
Here is a good article and some more material to look at....
http://time.com/7604/an-ultra-cheap-anti-union-upstart-airline-could-transform-flying/
http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/levelingtheplayingfield/
Basically, they are trying to create an airline that is operated under the flag of convince model. If you look at how the shipping industry in the United States was decimated under this scheme, NAI is trying to do the same thing.
Not that I do not have some reservations about the NAI set-up and possible precedence that it may set, but the Time article is inaccurate. The pilots at Norwegian Long Haul ( the current company ) are not Thai and they are not "cheap labor". They are, for the most part, Europeans and I hardly think that $14,000/month is cheap for a captain. Certainly it could be better, but many South American, African, Eastern European, and Asian widebody captains make significantly less money. They already have U.S. based American cabin crew. Those would have to be paid at least U.S. minimum wage and I'm sure they make more than that. It's not like Regional cabin crew make more than they do, so again, where is the problem?
Also , I understand what happened to the U.S. shipping industry but again I think the rhetoric being bantered about is somewhat fear mongering. This is not an airline being based in Liberia. It is Ireland and the EU. I personally know some Irish regulators and they are not incompetent in the least so I can't buy off an any lack of oversight or safety concerns from this current set-up of NAI.
All expansion in air travel creates jobs outside of aviation. It creates jobs in tourism, hotels, and many other ancillary services. The people who are gainfully employed in those jobs in the USA due to increased tourism and travel will then take vacations of their own, most likely on U.S. airlines. Not to mention that, in this case, NAI will buy Boeing products thus creating more revenue in the USA for even more jobs, creating more travel.
NAI itself is not a threat to U.S. carriers. They are small potatoes. It's not like a frequent flyer or business traveler is going to be buying tickets on them.
It's also difficult to understand where this supposed cheap labor is going to come from. It's not like there are 100,000 ( take your pick of cheap labor pilots in the world ) who are going to come take all these jobs. The bidding wars for pilots in Asia should be proof of that.
One thing that U.S. pilots, but more importantly, U.S. airline managers need to realize is that the USA is not the biggest air travel market in the world anymore. Well, perhaps it is still in pure numbers, but over time it's percentage is going down. As the rest of the world population reaches an income level where they can afford airline travel the international carriers grow larger and larger. There are whole middle class populations in India and China that are larger than the total population of the USA.
The rise is number of airplanes operating in Asia over the last 20 years is staggering. Same for the Middle East and now starting in Africa. That to me is opportunity. I think U.S. carriers should go after some of that traffic, where allowed under open skies policies. If not allowed, they should push for it with the help of the government where necessary. I think DAL should look seriously at a mini-hub in the Middle East to capture the Indian ( and rest of the sub-Continent ) market. Something akin to the NRT operation.
Protectionism is not a good long term strategy. It never really works over the long term because natural forces of supply and demand will dictate change.
Oh, and I wish it was understood that decimated actually means reduced by 10%. It is only colloquially correct in the sense used, but not technically correct. Destroyed would be a better word
Typhoonpilot
