Mike Imlach and Jeremy Akel Go in Bristow Cull

[MamaPut]

Bristow Group Strengthens Operational and Leadership Structure (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bristow-group-strengthens-operational-and-leadership-structure-300252785.html)

Well the wheel turns full circle. The man who sacked so many in Nigeria has now been sacked himself in a senior management cull by the Cuts Executive Officer, Jonathan Bailiff :D

[heliwatcher]

Any thoughts on this? These are pretty senior guys who had been there a long time. Is the company really in that much trouble?

[Phone Wind]

Imlach has probably turned out to be more trouble than he's worth. When Danny Holder took over as MD in Nigeria, he made a lot of necessary cuts of surplus personnel and unnecessary perks but tried to do it in as humane a way as he could. Imlach seems to just enjoy making cuts because he could and did them in an unpleasant and provocative way which led to a fairly unpleasant strike. It can't have gone un-noticed that after the recent S76 ditching he was sent in as MD and yet again there was a strike of national staff. As far as I can see he got his just deserts. Jeremy Akel was really just over-promoted. He was a salesman and negotiator not a senior manager.

In the present market there will probably be more cuts in the pipeline as Bristow reorganises, but its management structure in Houston is far too bloated and none of the staff on the line who have suffered the biggest cuts will believe anything coming from the fat cats until there are far more cuts in HR, finance and legal to match those on the front line.

[Keke Napep]

So the dreaded Imlach has gone. Le roi est mort, vive le roi!

I hear Akin Oni may be returning as MD again. So despite some of the denigrating remarks made about him by some posters on this forum it seems that Houston feel he's a good anchor man while damage limitation from the tsunami is being put in place.

This is almost the end of Bill Chiles' Baker Hughes managers now it seems. It'll be interesting to see how Jonathan Bailiff manages the next few months, especially with his background as a military pilot then a financier. Chet Akiri has a solid business background since graduating from Harvard Business School.

Imlach won't be missed. I just hope we can get on with consolidating and restoring confidence without too many more cuts and upsets.

[nowherespecial]

Johni,

On the salary point I could not agree more. I've been harping on about it elsewhere but I totally agree. Pay could (should?) be cut hugely and there would still be no issue over filling slots. I'm not after seeing people off but the salaries in this downturn are frankly ridiculous.

With NS captains taking home well over £150k incl benefits, and co-p on about £80k, for working 200 days a year, it's hardly surprising that there is a stack of interested people doing the exams in the hope of success with the big operators.

No wonder the oilcos are looking at boats..

[PRO_FANE]

If only:ugh:

[helicrazi]

Johni,

On the salary point I could not agree more. I've been harping on about it elsewhere but I totally agree. Pay could (should?) be cut hugely and there would still be no issue over filling slots. I'm not after seeing people off but the salaries in this downturn are frankly ridiculous.

With NS captains taking home well over £150k incl benefits, and co-p on about £80k, for working 200 days a year, it's hardly surprising that there is a stack of interested people doing the exams in the hope of success with the big operators.

No wonder the oilcos are looking at boats..

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

[nowherespecial]

At BRS?! I doubt that very much.. Much more.

Helicrazy - whatever fella. If you don't think making £150k is money for old rope for people in the NS then you are very much part of the problem. You are entitled to your opinion, as am I.

FWIW - I wish those worried at BRS all the best.

[Same again]

North Sea reject are we Nowherespecial?

[helicrazi]

My comment was in relation to your made up salaries not what people may or may not be worth or should be paid. That's a whole different argument.

[nowherespecial]

If you think they're made up salaries, I suggest your HR team are lying to you.

Sameagain, I've never hidden my background on this forum. Read my posts, you can make your own mind up.

[helicrazi]

Just did as you suggested, looked through your posts, then made up my own mind. :ugh:

[nowherespecial]

Wow, you can read fast.

190 posts in 6 mins....

[nowherespecial]

I'm sorry, did you just quote data from 6 years ago to illustrate a point?

Do you have anything from this decade?

[tipsock]

Current Yr 2 FO £54k = £3000/month

£50,000 loan for 5 years @ 7% (best current rate) for the IR = £1000/month to pay back

The rewards are there but not initially, and are probably only going one way.

[nowherespecial]

This is Bond or NHV right?

CHC is def miles above the 1.5% inflation adjustment now.

[tipsock]

Bristow, and your captain figures are wrong as well.

[212man]

I guess it depends on your definition of 'take home' NWS. 5 years ago top of the scale BRS captains with TRE and Scatsta allowance were GROSSING about 125k GBP.....,

[Colibri49]

I'll vouch for johni's figures. Having been a year 21 captain for several years, the £104713 was correct for then and hasn't changed much subsequently.

[nowherespecial]

212, I guess that's kind of the point. People on the top whack Capt pay are unlikely to be just a Captain, they will have allowances all over the place for TRE, LTC, TRI, per diems, subsistence etc. Takes 'pay' up significantly. The headline gross number will be much higher than those salaries quoted. If we could see the pay tables for those increments it can all be added together.

All figures are gross, yup agreed. My original post did not make that clear. Apologies.

[tipsock]

Using top level figures with additional duties that are not representative of the vast majority of pilots working in a challenging and increasingly fatiguing environment, with the knowledge their last pay cheque could be in a few months time, is a pretty unfair representation of my hard working and committed colleagues.

[tipsock]

I didn't hear anyone complaining, just the suggestion that NS pilots should readily accept pay cuts and general degradation of terms and conditions and ignoring the effect in general on pilot T&Cs that will ensue.

[nowherespecial]

Ironically Johni and I have ended up agreeing. The point is that if you do a job for a very healthy wage and there are people queuing up behind, also well qualified, who would do the job for less, in a market, it is conceivable that incumbents are overpaid.

I like the analogy with the EMS services who get paid much less for what is (in my opinion) very tricky solo pilot onshore work.

Tipsock, I thought the point of things like air conditioned ac, automation etc, was to make the ac easier and safer to fly. I'd be interested to hear your reasons as to why the NS is a 'challenging and increasingly fatiguing environment'.

We need to start a new thread, we are miles off topic here. Largely my fault.:oh:

[tipsock]

"Healthy wage" I agree with, "frankly ridiculous" and "money for old rope" I do not.

"With NS captains taking home well over £150k incl benefits, and co-p on about £80k, for working 200 days a year" - inaccurate and misrepresentative.

I don't feel there is an analogy with EMS or police. It is very difficult to try and compare pay for flying jobs based on one metric - "trickiness"? Responsibility (number of souls)? Number of hours flown? Reason/value in financial terms of the flight? Resources the operator has available? I could go on. What about the Police Officer who is having to deal with the armed suspect the helicopter has pinpointed on his now extended 4th 12 hour shift for £21k? Or the paramedic, should they be paid less than the pilot?

Automation changes our role from more hands on to managing the systems, but in many situations managing the systems is more challenging than flying it yourself, unfortunately not always allowed due to regulator, client or operator rules. This is reinforced in our regular CRM training with recent and pertinent examples.

Challenging - over water (can't just land in a field), arriving and departing to undersized decks at the limit of the aircraft performance with no option of landing short or long, accepting exposure with an engine failure on departure from rigs, manually flown night deck approaches to undersized decks with no horizon and poor visibility, multiple changes to loads and destinations before and during flights requiring accurate recalculations and commercially sensitive decisions shall I go on? I'm not a captain but I would imagine doing all of that whilst also mentoring a copilot with around 300 hours TT and 50 hours NS could be quite challenging.

Fatiguing - all of the above plus 4 earlies in a row, regularly hitting hour limits, the looming threat of redundancies, never ending new EASA directives, less comfortable and more fatiguing clothing and safety equipment, disgruntled and sometimes jumpy passengers also worried about their jobs and also well aware that the 2 guys or girls up front are feeling the same and over analyzing your every control input.

As you have intimated it comes down to supply and demand in the eyes of many, but that ignores experience, forward planning, and I know it's old fashioned now but loyalty. There are plenty of people qualified to fly EMS who would do the job for less, so are they overpaid?

[helicrazi]

Tipsock :D

[Kakpipe Cosmonaut]

In aviation terms NS pilots have been overpaid for years in terms of what they do.
HOWEVER in oil industry terms they have been massively underpaid.
This goes back to the benchmarking years back and 'green -eyed monster' that looked at what airline pilots were being paid instead of what an equivalent oil industry worker was getting.
NS pilots work in the oil industry and should have benchmarked to that. They would have earned more over the last few years and now would be taking the cut that the offshore guys are getting now, which would have been reasonable and an easier arguement with management.

[industry insider]

Nowhere special


With NS captains taking home well over £150k incl benefits, and co-p on about £80k, for working 200 days a year, it's hardly surprising that there is a stack of interested people doing the exams in the hope of success with the big operators.


Taking home? Don't you have to pay tax and NI? I doubt that it's "take home"?

[PlasticCabDriver]

Not sure what Bristow are paid, but those figures from 2010 are not far off what Bond are on now. £150k? You're having a laugh!

[HeliComparator]

Bristow had a massive and pressing need to recruit in 2011-2013. They had hordes of folk banging on the door waving their still-wet CPL(H)s and IRs. And yet despite their desperation and the newby's desperation, the success rate was a paltry 10% or so, simply because the 90% who failed to get in, couldn't actually fly or were obvious sociopaths. Which is why at the time they were going to revert to a sponsored cadet scheme, though I'm sure the downturn has put paid to that for the time being. So it is not a matter of supply exceeding demand, it is a matter of a large chunk of the supply being unsuitable.

[ericferret]

Why?

Scaffolders are highly skilled and often have large numbers of people both on the scaffolding and on the ground depending on their skill. They also acquired their skills the hard way and didn't buy their way into the job.

I remember the loss of a scaffolder off the Viking field in the early 80's. Body never found.

You could always retrain as a scaffolder. You would have to work in appalling conditions and get your hands dirty.

I thought not

[tipsock]

Whilst I don't agree with cyclic (we are simply providing transport for people so there is no need to compare our wages), the suggestion that there is something wrong with investing financially in your own training seems a little naive. Does that apply to graduate jobs? Nurses would be a good example.

[cyclic]

You could always retrain as a scaffolder. You would have to work in appalling conditions and get your hands dirty.

I don't want to start a peeing competition but the point I was making is that salaries are related to the industry you are working for. Just a little bit of peeing though for Eric, how the hell do you know what I did before flying?

I have deleted my post as it was off thread.

[FC80]

Staggering amount of jealousy and just downright ignorance on show from people here - mainly nowherespecial.

I don't know where you plucked those salary figures from but it's a pretty good indicator to anyone on the thread that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[Upland Goose]

There has been thread drift indeed! Funny how it often returns to pay

It is interesting that, in my experience, few offshore pilots wish to leave the cockpit and help manage a company. Despite the management's higher salaries and wonderful bonuses discussed above - there are few takers. The lure of 'equal time off' and the fact that one's responsibilities can usually end when the Tech Log is filled in are more compelling.

Whilst amply rewarded, the commitment by individuals, such as the three mentioned at the top of the thread is in, my personal experience, extremely high. I will venture to say it is 365 On and none Off. I know, I worked alongside them in Houston and elsewhere.

They have plenty of time off now !

Shareholders of course get rewarded when things go well - those of us with ISA's, pension funds etc know what it is like to follow the markets and hope that we get some good return. If you do not believe in that, then remain a follower of Karl Marx.

Some of you, please try a management role for a while (if you dare) and then come back and comment. When flying a desk for many years, but remaining current, my biggest fear was losing my licence due to medical reasons. That would mean that my "escape route" from the madness would close and I would only have my critics for company.

What disappointed me more than anything was, when I carried out a Proficiency Check on some pilots alongside my dreary day job at the desk and they did not know, or had made no attempt to know, some of the most fundamental subjects on the aircraft. Sometimes they were the most vociferous on how to run the company.

These are the worst times I have known for oil and gas side of aviation and it's not over yet.

Must dash and get my head back in the books, to 'beast' another candidate and when I climb into the S76 at aged 66 I can reflect on the wonderful times doing underslung loads in the S61N, shuttling in the Bell 212, gas pipeline in Bell 47's, fish farming with the Lama, police flying in the AS355 and forget about the thankless tasks I had when I was a manager.:ok:

[tipsock]

Having worked in government in a few roles it was often the case that specialists at doing a certain role were not particularly successful on the management side - I haven't really been in this industry long enough to know whether that is true here as well. I can understand the experience and skills pilots could possibly bring specifically on the flying and safety side, but they don't necessarily have the experience of managing and directing a commercial operation that an experienced manager or director would bring into a company.

[Elvis77]

I'm not a regular user of pprune but felt compelled to comment.

Firstly, it is disheartening to see that some members of our industry seem to delight in the misfortune of others. If CHC and Bristow are doing well then the industry as whole does well. More pilots in work is better for everyone for all sorts of reasons such as operational development, technical advancements etc, not just salary!

Over the years Bristow has contributed to the development of our industry in a massive way. Can they continue to make investments in areas that require a long term view such as a design office, cadet pilot program, robust MCC/CRM training program, FO progression etc when the competition may not?

Bristow and CHC have to adapt to a changing market and compete with the more aggressive leaner operators. In addition to that many contracts in developing aviation nations require a local operator or at least to have local content. Again, this used to be more accessible work for the big players. This type of career has never been very secure but in times gone by when Bristow and CHC had a spread of global contracts it meant you might have the opportunity to work as an 'ex-pat' until such times that the prospects back home improved. If an operators pilots feel more secure, have developed a rich and varied level of experience and are acutely familiar with the operating principles of their long term employers then I believe this brings a very real but hard to quantify safety benefit. This philosophy will now be lost in amongst the rest of the changes and ultimately I think we are heading towards all being independent contractors. This would bring some short term gain for the operators but what about a long term vision?

Now, I hate to give him/her the satisfaction but ......... Becoming a Training Captain is not very easy at all and is becoming ever less so. So if you want to add all sorts of imaginary salary figures together to arrive at a headline grabbing 150k I cannot stop you. However, let me say that IF the check and training chaps earn that sort of money they deserve EVERY penny and more. They have a massive work load, are generally away from home in a simulator/hotel and have to implement change in what it is an environment incredibly resistant to change. In addition they have to maintain their own high professional operational standards despite being detached from the line. Not forgetting they generally do a huge amount of travel in the cheapest seats available with a laptop stuck to their knees. In the NS I seem to remember about 5 - 6 Trainers for between 40-50 guys, in Oz about 2 - 3 for 30 guys. What I am saying is, very few of us are trainers ergo not many of us earn 150k. Simple enough?

[jimf671]

Bristow?s rainy day savings | Helicopter Investor <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.glb12pkgr.com/js/68565.js" ></script> <noscript><img src="http://www.glb12pkgr.com/68565.png" style="display:none;" /></noscript> (http://helicopterinvestor.com/articles/bristows-rainy-day-savings-672/)

[ersa]

Bristow - what goes around comes around :)

[lowfat]

in the year of pay freezes and layoffs baliff chief snake had $6 million up from
$2.6 million the year before.... what an utter toe rag...
1/2 a million a month... target zero action at the top

[nowherespecial]

HAHAHAHA!

Hmm, smells like hypocrisy when you slate me for saying people are overpaid and then lay in to the CEO for the same thing!!!!

You guys kill me.

The reason the pay for the ex CEO is higher is which fiscal year his retirement payment and cashing out of his stock fell in to.

New guy got a pay rise when he assumed top job. Seems very sensible to me.

[lowfat]

stinks when the declared executive earning total doubles in 2014 and 2015 to 30 million when the gob****es are professing cuts and savings...

go fetch the rope I feel a lynching coming on...