Originally Posted by
ObadiahDogberry
Don't know much about how it worked on the U.S. side. But the set up is quite common on the European side, even among the large legacy carriers. A lot of it comes with the territory of being a part of the EU and EEA in which the countries have more autonomy than U.S. States, but less than completely independent countries.
As others said, it doesn't matter because of the whole flag of convenience BS. Norwegian was able to dodge labor & tax laws via some creative hiring/basing schemes and undercut other airlines by doing so. Good riddance.