NJASAP joins Southwest peers in call for President-elect Trump to reverse Norwegian decision

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a show of support and a plea for immediate intervention from the incoming Trump Administration, the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP) will join their Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association (SWAPA) peers in a pilot support rally outside the White House on Tuesday, Jan. 24. The groups have joined forces to ask President-elect Donald Trump to reverse an Obama administration decision to grant a foreign air carrier permit to Norwegian Air International (NAI).

"The current administration's contemptible move to undermine the U.S. aviation industry and the hundreds of thousands of men and women in its employ is one only President-elect Trump can reverse," NJASAP President Pedro Leroux said. "The incoming president understands the extraordinary damage inflicted upon middle-class America by bad trade policy – of which this decision is a striking example – and we are urging him to take immediate steps to reverse this measure."

A late-December decision by Obama's Department of Transportation (DOT) gifted foreign carrier NAI a foothold in the domestic aviation system, granting them carte blanche to set into motion a flags of convenience scheme (FOC). Briefly, an FOC scheme is one in which a corporation establishes a subsidiary in a country of its choosing to circumvent its home country's regulatory, labor and tax laws. It was this very type of scheme that ultimately destroyed the U.S. maritime industry and the good jobs it once supported.

Industry affairs representatives from both NJASAP and SWAPA are pursuing every possible avenue to draw the incoming administration's attention to this issue. And the clock is ticking: The approval goes into effect on Jan. 29.

"The Obama administration has put aviation jobs at risk, and it is up to the incoming Trump administration to save them," NJASAP Industry Affairs Committee Chair Capt. Coley George said. "Simply stated, the DOT's decision is an anti-worker move that poses a direct threat to the viability, integrity and safety of the U.S. aviation industry: We are imploring President-elect Trump to make it right by repealing an egregious ruling that is truly unprecedented in modern aviation policy making."

George continued, "Obama and his DOT have grossly skewed the playing field in favor of foreign competition, and if this stands, we can expect additional international carriers to follow suit, giving foreign interests an even greater stake in the domestic marketplace. When you combine this with U.S. carriers' diminished ability to compete in the global aviation market, the stage has been perfectly set for the decimation of U.S. aviation interests."

Founded in 2008 as an independent labor advocate, NJASAP represents the professional interests of the 2,700-plus pilots who fly in the service of NetJets Aviation, Inc. For more information, visit our web site, www.njasap.com, Facebook page, www.facebook.com/njasap, or Twitter feed, @njasap.

Rally Hashtags: #DenyNAI #MakeItRight #ReverseObama

SOURCE NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP)