Airline jobs threatened by carriers fleeing regulation after late Obama move

Imagine an industry that today employs nearly 700,000 people, that supports over 10 million jobs across the United States. Now, imagine the government putting that and an annual 5 percent of gross national product at risk while ceding its oversight role over the safety and security of 900 million air travelers per year.

That's the precipice upon which America's airline industry stands today. Thanks to the last-minute approval of Norwegian Air International's foreign carrier permit by the Obama administration, just weeks before he left office, the American airline industry now faces a threat very similar to the one responsible for destroying the once-mighty U.S. maritime shipping industry.

NAI, which is set to begin flying new routes between the U.S. and Europe next month, operates internationally under a "flag-of-convenience" scheme – a business model that allows it to skirt international labor standards, outsource cheap labor from low-wage countries, and take advantage of weak safety and security oversight. To avoid the regulations that would limit such action, NAI established its operations in Ireland to take advantage of that country's lax labor and other regulations.

By approving NAI's application, the Obama administration kicked off a global race to the bottom for the airline industry, and the hundreds of thousands of hard-working men and women who keep our nation's airlines flying will pay the steepest price.

The good news is that a group of bipartisan members of Congress recently took a stand against the grave threat of flag-of-convenience schemes in the airline industry by introducing legislation (H.R. 2150, the Flags of Convenience Don't Fly Here Act) that would prohibit the Department of Transportation (DOT) from issuing a permit to a foreign airline unless DOT determines that the airline is not establishing itself in a particular country just to avoid regulations. The bill would also require DOT to ensure that any new foreign air carrier permits issued to European airlines are consistent with the fair labor standards and competition requirements of the U.S.-EU-Norway-Iceland Air Transport Agreement.