Brussels, 02/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - It still does not appear as if the US is going to grant Norwegian Air International the controversial transatlantic flight link. The European Commission is doing its best to ensure that the Open Sky aviation agreement between the EU and the US is duly applied by Washington, although the unions have criticised the second-rate social model advocated by the airline.
Authorisation for Norwegian Air flights to the US was the subject of a telephone conversation on Friday 30 January, between the US Secretary of State for Transport, Anthony Foxx and the European Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc. This is the first time that the latter has got to grips with the dossier, which has been open for more than a year now. Bulc repeated the Commission position that the procedure applied by the US is too slow, despite the fact that the Open Sky agreement stipulates that authorisation to fly has to be granted swiftly (within a deadline of around two months, normally).
The unions have, however, been denouncing the manoeuvrings by Norwegian Air, for a long time, and claimed that it is taking advantage of a branch in Dublin, Europe, to provide low-cost flights to the US, with staff employed on Singaporean contracts. The Political Secretary of the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) François Ballestero, therefore stated on Monday 2 February that granting Norwegian Air authorisation, “would mean a precedent which would begin a race to the bottom, because other airlines would be faced with unfettered competition based on unrealistic labour costs”.
The European Commission did not want to make any comment about the Norwegian company's business model, affirming that this was more a matter to do with social dialogue within the aviation sector on whether to allow flights to the US or not. (MD)