L'WAAPAM,
Good things,
It's always warm, even when it rains, Star and Gulder are sold in 600 ml bottles, are strong, usually cold and usually cheap (except in the Jolly Sailor where they are now usually warm and expensive
) and the Sheraton where they are just expensive. New helicopters are finally arriving after years of underinvestment.
Bad things,
Schreiner has now been taken over by CHC but it's too late even for them to get rid of the Mumbai Monument in Port Harcourt NAF base. That hangar/office building is a nightmare, even if it is a bit better than the truly appalling old AGIP base. When it rains it's like being inside a drum with a tonne of peas being dropped on it and it's oriented to constantly subject the engineers inside to unacceptable levels of helicopter noise as the door opens directly onto the ramp. As Tokunbo says, the ACN housing in Port Harcourt is well below standard despite being refurbished to cope with the extra people the change to a 6:6 roster brought. It really needs someone from a First World company to check out the electrics in the houses as, in my opinion they're very dangerous (though not as much as the generator fuel tank!). As for the air conditioners
- the management is proud of the fact that with the aid of super-service company D
x, they can keep their clapped-out old wall units going for up to 20 years
. Okay, housing is scarce and expensive in Port Harcourt, but this could have been dealt with years ago by buying land and building their own staff house. A few years ago there were even plans for that, but the attitude of the then-management was that they were an aviation company, not a property company. Compare this with the houses Bristow live in or the hotel where Pan African pilots often stay, which has nice rooms, good food, swimming pool and sporting and leisure facilities.
The traffic in Port Harcourt is really awful.
You are Welcome to Nigeria