Originally Posted by
NERD
As Forrest would say"I'm not a smart man", but why don't they just hire within the EU, base it out of Norway and be done with it? Why the need to spread things out over 3 countries? Seems like a lot of extra layers.
They can't base it out of Norway, because Norway is not a member of the EU, and, therefore, not a party to the US-EU open skies agreement. While they can operate flights to the US under the US-Norway bilateral, they can't operate unlimited US-EU service under the more liberal open skies agreement. Basing NAI in Ireland is intended to allow it to operate, as an Irish airline, under the US-EU agreement rather than the US-Norway agreement.