Last night a boat carrying Hyundai Heavy Industries personnel from Port Harcourt to Bonny Island was attacked by a number of other speedboats carrying armed men. During the attack one Dutch civilian and one Nigerian Navy man were killed. The Captain of the boat died today. 6 others were injured. Helicopters are needed even more out here now, because more expats, and many Nigerians, are refusing to be transported by boat. Unfortunately, it's getting more difficult to find enough people to come and work here and as more newcomers do come, the overall experience level decreases. If not for the harmattan causing many helicopters to have been grounded for much of the last 3 weeks, I'm sure there would have been red faces as the companies tried to find new excuses for them being grounded because of lack of crews
. This is not surprising when only token measures are taken to improve security of staffs
. Aero takes security so seriously that their security officer kindly posted a nice list with the names of all staff, their house numbers and a request for telephone numbers, on a noticeboard accessible by anybody. Bristow as usual, just talks about what it might do. Caverton does nothing. With all the unrest in the area I wonder if the people back in YVR are wondering if their investment of several million dollars in Port harcourt is safe? If I were an investor in the company I would be asking about it.
Looking at the Caverton website, I see that it's really up to date. The major focus is still on the A109E - which left the country last year after it was sold. There's a nice photograph of their grounded Dauphin, the departed 109 and the yellow AS350 (the only helicopter still flying - unless the one 'on its way coming' is flying somewhere today
). With no more income from NPA, a large, unused hangar, offices, luxury passenger lounge and waterside heliport in Lagos, all built at enormous expense, plus the passenger facility which they refurbished at NAF Base Port Harcourt and a new hangar being built there - where's all the money coming from
? I'm sure that one leased AS350 doesn't generate the income to fund it all. They must been down millions of dollars over the few years they've been around. There was also the recent fiasco with the Let410 they brought in, without even having secured permission to use Mobil's airstrip on Bonny Island. They must have at least 5 or 6 pilots just to man one helicopter which operates single crew. Still, it's good to see that 'cavertonmanagement' is still optimistic about the future
. Presumably it's just a rich man's hobby rather than a serious money-making enterprise.