Helimut. To approach your question in a different way, why are offshore salaries so much higher than onshore.
it is my contention that we have to go back to the start of N Sea O & G anD thank our lucky stars that British Airways and British Caledonian decided that this was a market they should be involved in and also that BALPA membership was strong in both of those companies. If that hadn’t been the case, then I suspect that salaries would have been much lower, and would have equated to the salaries doled out in the Gulf of Mexico.
With regard to onshore salaries (at least, Police and HEMS salaries), well when PAS and OSS started, they were sort of making those numbers up. They were never going to be able to compete with the BCal pilots who operated the Met’s helicopters, as they were mostly all volunteers from the N Sea who were naturally going to expect a similar income to their jobs up in Aberdeen.
Add to that, that really high numbers were going to kill a fledgling market stone dead at inception. After that a trend has been set.
for what it’s worth, having seen at first hand the point at which the (exceptionally pro helicopter), finance managers of a very large police force on the UK, Started to raise their eyebrows and consider going elsewhere, I think that Police salaries in particular are pretty close to their maximum, although they might manage another couple of percent more.
As for HEMS salaries, in the end, it’s not so much the willingness (or lack of) of the aircraft and crew providers to pay a particular rate, as much as the wealth, viability and income capacity of the charities.