Over 100 Members of Congress Urge President-Elect Trump to Protect American Jobs and Security, Reject NAI
Washington, D.C. – Today, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Aviation Rick Larsen (D-WA), and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee member John Katko (R-NY) led over 100 Members of Congress on a bipartisan letter to President-elect Donald J. Trump, urging him to reverse a decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation to allow Norwegian Air International (NAI) to operate routes between the U.S. and Europe.
NAI has established itself in Ireland, where labor laws permit the airline to hire its pilots and flight attendants on individual employment contracts under non-European law in order to cut costs. NAI’s overt practice of labor forum-shopping violates our Open Skies agreement with Norway and the European Union and gives it an unfair competitive advantage in the transatlantic market.
“On December 2, 2016, the Department of Transportation (DOT) made a grievously wrong decision to grant Norwegian Air International a foreign air carrier permit for U.S.-Europe air services. Given your commitment to protecting American jobs and our national security, we strongly urge you, on Day One of your presidency, to revoke or suspend the permit until Norwegian changes its business model to a model that does not rely on a flag of convenience and threaten America’s international aviation industry and our national security,” the members wrote.
A full copy of the letter can be found below.
December 20, 2016
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
The President-elect
1717 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
Dear Mr. President-elect:
On December 2, 2016, the Department of Transportation (DOT) made a grievously wrong decision to grant Norwegian Air International a foreign air carrier permit for U.S.-Europe air services. Given your commitment to protecting American jobs and our national security, we strongly urge you, on Day One of your presidency, to revoke or suspend the permit until Norwegian changes its business model to a model that does not rely on a flag of convenience and threaten America’s international aviation industry and our national security.
Norwegian is “Norwegian” in name only: Its crews work under short-term contracts, many governed under Singapore law; some crewmembers are based in Bangkok; and the company is organized and regulated in Ireland. It is, for all intents and purposes, a virtual airline. Norwegian is the first airline in the transatlantic market to fly under a flag of convenience, but the Department’s recent decision guarantees Norwegian will not be the last.
If the DOT’s decision stands, other airlines are likely to follow suit and organize subsidiaries in foreign countries with lax labor laws, tax loopholes, or weak safety and security oversight. Global civil aviation will devolve into a system that relies on flags of convenience. This race to the bottom will threaten the viability of U.S. airlines and their fleets of widebody aircraft that comprise the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). Under the CRAF program, airlines volunteer parts of their fleets for military use during national emergencies and in times of war. More than 130 widebody aircraft in the United States’ three major long-haul carriers’ fleets were available for mobilization by the Department of Defense under the CRAF program as of January 2016. However, if U.S. carriers find themselves unable to compete with other airlines that copy Norwegian’s flag-of-convenience business model, U.S. airlines will downsize their widebody fleets, and our ability to move troops and materiel will suffer substantially. National security, as well as American jobs, is on the line.
The U.S.-E.U.-Iceland-Norway Open Skies agreement opened the transatlantic aviation market. Norwegian and every airline in the market benefit from the right under the agreement to fly from anywhere in the United States to anywhere in Europe. In creating this lucrative right, however, the agreement included protections to ensure fairness in the transatlantic aviation market.
The DOT ignored those protections, as well as well-established law prohibiting a decision inconsistent with those protections, in granting Norwegian’s permit, and our country will pay a price for that failure of responsibility. We will pay that price as we watch a race to the bottom among airlines that are forced to compete with Norwegian. Moreover, while Norwegian chose the safe harbor of a country whose labor laws permit forum-shopping for the cheapest labor, the next airline to fly under a flag of convenience may choose the safe harbor of an opportunistic country with weak safety and security regulations, with serious consequences for safety and national security.
We strongly urge you to correct the Department’s mistake. We urge you, on Day One of your presidency, to start the process necessary to revoke or suspend Norwegian’s permit.
Thank you for your consideration of our views.
Sincerely,
____________________ ____________________
Peter DeFazio Frank A. LoBiondo
Ranking Member Member of Congress
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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Rick Larsen John Katko
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Marcy Kaptur Peter J. Visclosky
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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John Lewis Fred Upton
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Frank Pallone, Jr. José E. Serrano
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Rosa DeLauro Collin Peterson
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Jerrold Nadler Xavier Becerra
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Anna G. Eshoo Alcee L. Hastings
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Eddie Bernice Johnson Lucille Roybal-Allard
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Nydia Velazquez Mike Thompson
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Michael F. Doyle Walter Jones
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Zoe Lofgren Elijah Cummings
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Diana DeGette Ron Kind
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Jim McGovern Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Pete Sessions Adam Smith
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Barbara Lee Robert A. Brady
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Michael E. Capuano Joe Crowley
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Grace F. Napolitano Janice D. Schakowsky
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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James R. Langevin Betty McCollum
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Stephen F. Lynch C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Tim Ryan Linda T. Sánchez
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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David Scott Brian Higgins
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Daniel Lipinski Gwen Moore
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Albio Sires Keith Ellison
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. David Loebsack
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Ed Perlmutter Peter Welch
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Jackie Speier Richard M. Nolan
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Gerald E. Connolly Duncan Hunter
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Ben Ray Lujan Paul D. Tonko
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Mike Quigley Judy Chu
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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John Garamendi Mike Fitzpatrick
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Bill Foster Mo Brooks
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Bob Gibbs William R. Keating
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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David McKinley James B. Renacci
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Suzanne Bonamici Suzan DelBene
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Donald M. Payne, Jr. Alan Grayson
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Julia Brownley Tony Cardenas
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Elizabeth H. Esty Paul Cook
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Rodney Davis Lois Frankel
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Jared Huffman Hakeem Jeffries
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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David P. Joyce Alan Lowenthal
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Michelle Lujan Grisham Sean Patrick Maloney
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Scott Peters Mark Pocan
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Kyrsten Sinema Alma S. Adams
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Donald Norcross Mike Bost
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Brendan F. Boyle Ryan A. Costello
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Carlos Curbelo Mark DeSaulnier
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Debbie Dingell Ruben Gallego
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Ted W. Lieu Seth Moulton
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Kathleen M. Rice Lee Zeldin
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Madeleine Z. Bordallo Eleanor Holmes Norton
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Stacey E. Plaskett
Member of Congress
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Louise Slaughter Lou Barletta
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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Sander M. Levin Jared Polis
Member of Congress Member of Congress