SAS to set up Irish AOC

Storm 10

Bit of competition for Ryanair

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/sas-to-set-up-irish-division-as-it-competes-in-leisure-traveller-market-35415128.html

Tabnabs

No hub in Ireland unless I'm reading it wrong?

SAS has announced that it will register planes in Ireland as the airline plans to set up hubs in Spain and London to offer services to more leisure travellers at a lower cost

JCX BXC

Also worth noting that SAS has a business model much different than Ryanair, they'd be much worse competition for Aer Lingus.

But there won't be a base, they're only registering Irish.

Locker10a

Basically they're using Ireland (yet again) to copy Norwegian and outsource jobs through cheaper agency workers using the guise of a "Irish" airline, even though the Irish registered aircraft may never touch Irish soil, I doubt many(if indeed any) Irish jobs will be created by this either

EICVD

Storm 10 wrote: »

Bit of competition for Ryanair

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/sas-to-set-up-irish-division-as-it-competes-in-leisure-traveller-market-35415128.html

Won't be any different to the competition against Ryanair right now.

Locker10a

EICVD wrote: »

Storm 10 wrote: »

Bit of competition for Ryanair

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/sas-to-set-up-irish-division-as-it-competes-in-leisure-traveller-market-35415128.html

Won't be any different to the competition against Ryanair right now.

As mentioned above, the intention is to base crews in Heathrow and Spain, there will likely be zero impact on flight to/from Ireland.

roundymac

It's really only for Irish T&Cs and tax,,,,correct?

Locker10a

roundymac wrote: »

It's really only for Irish T&Cs and tax,,,,correct?

Correct

kub

roundymac wrote:

It's really only for Irish T&Cs and tax,,,,correct?

More tax so for our economy, how bad.

smurfjed

More tax so for our economy, how bad.

What do the SAS unions think of this and will the politicians be strong enough to stand against them?

Locker10a

kub wrote: »

roundymac wrote:

It's really only for Irish T&Cs and tax,,,,correct?

More tax so for our economy, how bad.

I think the tax gained by this is negligible to the Irish economy, the crux of the issue is this is an avoidance of tax and labour laws by a Scandinavian company, you may think this is a win for Ireland but really we're probably fools, look at the apple tax fiasco, are we proud of this reputation, and as I say it's not like Irish people will see any benefit, especially when little or no jobs will be created

roundymac

The Apple situtation is totally different. Apple have created 3-4 thousand high end jobs and another thousand or so in support industries. SAS will really only be a paper company, or as they would be called in shipping terms, using a flag of convience.

Donal55

We'll be held with the same contempt as those countries that flag their shipping off to Kiribati and Panama etc.
Pretty soon Irish registered companies will equate with low wages and poor conditions.

JCX BXC

If Norweigan are getting away with it, why can't SAS? That's probably going to be the main issue here.

Mebuntu

What do the SAS unions think of this and will the politicians be strong enough to stand against them?

An airline wants to provide low-cost travel, increase its passenger numbers, create more jobs that people will take up regardless and you want the unions and politicians to oppose them? Didn't we have enough of that here when Aer Lingus/Aer Rianta unions and politicians (excluding Séamus Brennan) tried every trick in the book to stop Ryanair in their tracks?

Locker10a

Mebuntu wrote: »

What do the SAS unions think of this and will the politicians be strong enough to stand against them?

An airline wants to provide low-cost travel, increase its passenger numbers, create more jobs that people will take up regardless and you want the unions and politicians to oppose them? Didn't we have enough of that here when Aer Lingus/Aer Rianta unions and politicians (excluding Séamus Brennan) tried every trick in the book to stop Ryanair in their tracks?

But this is very different, it's not about expanding or creating jobs, it's about outsourcing jobs to lower paid foreigners and avoiding tax, it's like aer lingus saying they're setting up a company in Slovakia, paying tax there and hiring Slovaks, then just operating flights to/from Ireland!!
And I agree with the above about Ireland getting a reputation about being a flag of convenience, tax avoiding, low wage country to do business, this IS what other countries are now thinking about us, and I'm embarrassed to be Irish in this regard.
Creating an incentive to attract employment from international companies = great news! But doing so, not monitoring or regulating it, and allowing situations like this to develop is where things start to get ugly

JCX BXC

What exactly is the difference between an Irish contract and say a Norwegian contract?

Elemonator

Storm 10 wrote: »

Bit of competition for Ryanair

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/sas-to-set-up-irish-division-as-it-competes-in-leisure-traveller-market-35415128.html

There is already a significant fraction of the worlds air traffic registered in Ireland.

Pat Dunne

JCX BXC wrote: »

What exactly is the difference between an Irish contract and say a Norwegian contract?

As a rule of thumb Norwegian salaries are significently higher than local salaries, usually double to treble that of Irish salaries.

This is off set by Norwegian employers and employees paying very large taxes and PRSI contributions. Also the cost of living in Norway is extremely high in comparasion to here. From direct personal experience, a cup of coffee costs €5/6, a pint will set you back €11/12, in your local in Oslo. If memory serves me correctly a return rail ticket from OSL to the central station in Oslo is in or around €30 adult return for a 20 minute train journey. However in return you get the very best in the world in child care, education, health services, pensions, infrastructure, etc

Also I believe that on the Irish side of things, the depreciation tax write off on new aircraft is very generous as well. In other words its the usual accountants "wet dream" in avoiding having to pay high levels of tax without significant outlay in cost on the Irish side of things. Basically this will comprise of a very small operation in Dublin, with probally less than 15 direct Irish employees looking after the legal details and accounting returns.

As per usual Ireland as a nation will hardly benefit in any way, with very little to almost nil tax returns.

Mebuntu

In other words its the usual accountants "wet dream" in avoiding having to pay high levels of tax without significant outlay in cost on the Irish side of things.

it's about outsourcing jobs to lower paid foreigners and avoiding tax

Why shouldn't they? Everybody tries to find ways of reducing their tax bills. Don't you?

Don't millions of Irish avoid Irish taxes (and high prices) by purchasing goods online for much less even allowing for shipping. How many thousands went up to the North to buy goods since Sterling bombed and over Christmas and didn't have any conscience about not paying Irish tax? It would be hypocrisy to do that and then complain about SAS's plan.

kub

Locker10a wrote:

I think the tax gained by this is negligible to the Irish economy, the crux of the issue is this is an avoidance of tax and labour laws by a Scandinavian company, you may think this is a win for Ireland but really we're probably fools, look at the apple tax fiasco, are we proud of this reputation, and as I say it's not like Irish people will see any benefit, especially when little or no jobs will be created

Sorry I assumed they would have been paying 12% of their profits to the Irish exchequer.

Locker10a

Mebuntu wrote: »

In other words its the usual accountants "wet dream" in avoiding having to pay high levels of tax without significant outlay in cost on the Irish side of things.

it's about outsourcing jobs to lower paid foreigners and avoiding tax

Why shouldn't they? Everybody tries to find ways of reducing their tax bills. Don't you?

Don't millions of Irish avoid Irish taxes (and high prices) by purchasing goods online for much less even allowing for shipping. How many thousands went up to the North to buy goods since Sterling bombed and over Christmas and didn't have any conscience about not paying Irish tax? It would be hypocrisy to do that and then complain about SAS's plan.

This is slightly different to shopping around online, and yes every company wants to pay as little tax as possible, but we could easily beaten with our own stick, if the US truly pushed to return their many many international companies with huge operations in Ireland by lower tax in the US/offering incentives then we would probably loose thousands of jobs, and all because companies tried to avoid tax, (the same reason they came here,and the same reason SAS are doing this) it's great, depending which side of the table you're sitting behind. But someone's a looser, and in this particular case it's SAS employees.

Locker10a

kub wrote: »

Locker10a wrote:

I think the tax gained by this is negligible to the Irish economy, the crux of the issue is this is an avoidance of tax and labour laws by a Scandinavian company, you may think this is a win for Ireland but really we're probably fools, look at the apple tax fiasco, are we proud of this reputation, and as I say it's not like Irish people will see any benefit, especially when little or no jobs will be created

Sorry I assumed they would have been paying 12% of their profits to the Irish exchequer.

Perhaps they will pay 12% of the profit (if any) of the small subsidy airline they set up, but this gain will probably be offset by the cost to IAA, who would be responsible for the regulation of their operations and fleet etc. There may be a small amount paid to the Irish exchequer, but a negligible amount really. There's one winner here and it's the small amount of people at the top of SAS and their investors who will be delighted with all their extra profit