Taking contracts on as lost leaders isn’t anything new. In fact I’ve heard several Bristow middle managers state in the last few weeks that they made no money on Apache to try and play it down. My information is that they did make money on it.
It’s the balancing act of taking some work at near enough to cost and juggling it alongside the more profitable short term stuff (oops drilling!) and right now the gift that keeps giving is CMED evacs which despite all the good press are not being done for free.
It takes the skill of a good Accountable Manager to balance what contracts to take on and what to leave well alone if it is indeed these incumbents who actually make that call in the first place? I suspect it’s more the decision support guys in faraway offices that have a bigger call than technically they should.