IMPACT has criticised the US Department of Transport’s decision to grant a permit to Norwegian Air International (NAI) to facilitate a Cork-Boston service, saying it won’t create any jobs in Ireland, the EU or the USA.

The international carrier is using a subsidiary in Ireland in order to bypass Norwegian employment law. The permit allows the subsidiary to hire flight crew using an agency in Singapore. This will allow NAI to fly between the EU and US using flight crews hired on contracts signed in Singapore.

US labour unions have voiced strong opposition to the granting of the permit, and have been supported by IALPA, the pilots’ branch of IMPACT.

IALPA president Evan Cullen said: “NAI’s parent company, Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS), could already be flying from Cork to the US under permits it already holds. It sought a separate US permit for its NAI subsidiary, a company that continues to employ flight crews under individual Asian contracts. A transatlantic coalition of airlines and unions has argued that NAI’s application should not be approved because its conduct diminishes the high labour standards embodied in the existing US-EU air service agreement.”

IMPACT national secretary Angela Kirk said the permit could erode Irish employment conditions in the longer term. “If NAI can operate between two regions, while at the same time bypass employment laws in both of them, it is likely to undermine existing employment conditions in the EU and US. If these employment standards are undermined through convenient offshore arrangements, the long term future of aviation employment standards is very bleak,” she said.