Pilots Protest Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's Support for Outsourcing Jobs

Last week, ALPA's national campaign to oppose the Norwegian Air Int'l (NAI) scheme went local. More than 80 Orlando-based pilots signed a petition opposing the Orlando mayor's enthusiastic support for NAI—as evidenced by Dyer's letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) encouraging approval of NAI's application for NAI's application to provide low-cost scheduled service in the United States and entry into the Orlando market. On Friday, February 28, pilots hand-delivered the petition to Mayor Dyer at City Hall, attracting significant media attention from the Orlando media. ALPA also launched a moving billboard that was deployed to Orlando's City Hall and airport to underscore the point that Mayor Dyer has fallen for NAI's dubious scheme and demanding he reassess his position.

The petition states that "While NAI's public relations team has been doing its best to spin NAI's DOT application, the fact is that NAI is offering a bad deal for the U.S. airline industry and a bad deal for Orlando. Any short-term promises NAI is making are far outweighed by the long-term costs their business model represents."

Allowing NAI to provide international air service to Orlando means that many Orlando-based pilots and their families will feel direct negative effects. In an effort to evade national minimum standards of labor protection and regulation, NAI is cherry-picking different countries in which to do business, getting certified in Ireland and contracting pilots through Singapore while basing the pilots in Thailand.

Join the 20,000 people who have already signed on to our petition to #DenyNAI at www.takeaction.alpa.org.