Scandinavian carrier Norwegian plans to ditch its Irish air operator certificate, even after an examiner told the High Court in recent months that the continuance of the Ireland-based Norwegian Air International unit was critical to the airline’s survival.

The Irish Independent revealed last week that Norwegian is eyeing redundancies at its Irish operation, which employs about 50 people.

The airline – which emerged from Ireland’s biggest ever examinership process in April – has told staff here that it is cutting the number of air operator certificates it holds from five to two.

One is based in Norway while the other is in Sweden so Norwegian can continue to have an air operator certificate (AOC) within the EU.

Staff at Norwegian in Dublin were told last week that the airline is planning to “restructure current departments to ensure a lean and efficient organisation adjusted to the new fleet size, business plan and strategy”.

In a meeting, it’s understood that staff in Ireland were told that the Irish AOC that Norwegian Air International (NAI) holds will be terminated in the longer-term.

Formal consultations with staff representatives in Dublin are due to begin shortly. It’s understood staff will push for voluntary redundancy terms on par with those offered at Aer Lingus and the DAA.

Norwegian chief executive Jacob Schram told staff in a circular last week that some staff in Ireland and Norway, as well as many employees in Spain, will be subject to restructuring and job losses.

“Lots of these colleagues have worked night and day for Norwegian over many years and it is painful to see them go as we right-size our company,” he said.

In its recent examinership process, the High Court here heard that the survival of Norwegian group companies including NAI was “central to the survival of the group as a whole”.

Norwegian has already started moving NAI aircraft off the Irish aircraft register.

Staff in Ireland fear that NAI will now effectively be put into hibernation as its importance to the group dwindles.

But a spokesman for the airline has continued to insist that it will not close NAI.

“NAI is a strategically and commercially important part of the wider Norwegian group due to specific intra-European routes and ticket sales that are intrinsically linked to NAI,” the spokesman said.

However, sources insisted that NAI is only important from the point of view of ticket sales because Norwegian’s new Swedish AOC has not yet secured so-called ticket-stock approval.

That is expected in September, when sources say that NAI’s role will diminish significantly.

Norwegian has told staff in Ireland that some future roles may be available to support the two air operator certificates the group will maintain in Norway and Sweden.

Most of those roles are likely to be based in Oslo, Barcelona and Riga, it told staff.

In a recent presentation to staff, seen by the Irish Independent, Norwegian said that its new simplified organisational design will “drive high productivity” and that it will have business centres outside the Nordic region to “lower cost and allow for efficient scaling”.