I'd go for Bristow.
The downside - you get 5 months leave a year compared with 6 months with ACN.
The upside -
The money is much better even for the extra time and is a known quantity. Nobody in ACN seems to have a clue what's happening to their salaries since the CHC take-over and a number of people have already quit to join Bristow - it doesn't seem to happen the other way around at the moment, now that Bristow has stopped laying off its older pilots.
Bristow have the key contracts with the world's two major oil companies, Exxon/Mobil and Shell, plus Chevron/Texaco through the other OLOG company, Pan African. ACN have contracts with AGIP and TotalFina Elf - much smaller players on the global scene.
By and large Bristow have much better accomodation (depending on which oil company contract you're employed on). In Lagos, for example they live in the Sheraton Hotel with all its leisure facilities, or in the BRC with swimming pool, tenis and squash. In Warri, different contracts also have reasonable accomodation and most pilots have access to swimming pool, tennis, squash and golf. If you're one of the very few ACN pilots in Warri, you'll have access to a swiming pool, but it doesn't matter because the housing is primitive and the estate they live on, itself becomes a swimming pool every rainy season!
In Port Harcourt the Bristow accomodation is a long way from town, but the houses are first class and all sporting amenities are there. For poor second-class ACN's 60 or more pilots in Port Harcourt, after years of neglect the accomodation has now been improved to a lousy standard (as opposed to an appalling standard before
), the food seems to give lots of people digestive problems and as for the swimming pool - after years and years of promises and prospective pilots being shown pictures of the Lagos pool and told this was what awaited them in PH - best not to ask. The last one was to have been built alongside the manager's house, the money was supposedly approved, but as usual nothing happened. The airconditioners mostly belong in a museum or in a second-hand stall at Mile One market (unless you're lucky enough to be living with the manager or ops manager, in which case you'll have nice split units). There are a few sweaty gym facilities in a converted garage and other than that nada
If you go to Eket it depends where you live. The accomodation is very variable, but the sporting facilities at QIT are good, including a golf course.
Bristow has a couple of downsides. There is still very much a culture of 'we know best' and this extends to your personal life as much as your professional life. They seem to think that because you're living in housing provide by them (which they're obliged to do) they can control your personal life in all sorts of ways which would be totally unacceptable if you were staying in company housing or a hotel in Europe. Since 'Big Al' left the company lays pilots off much more quickly and in the fairly recent past laid off most of its pilots over the age of 57 as a result of a decision (subsequently changed) by Exxon/Mobil.
Both companies are expanding and modernising their fleets. With Bristow they operate mostly Bell 212/412, S76, AS332 and EC155 (though there are rumors of Shell replacing them soon). ACN operate mostly SA365N, N1 and N2 (though these are now fairly elderly and rumor has it that many of them will be replaced with 365N3 or S76C+ fairly soon) and S76B/C+.
At the end of the day, if you have the qualifications both of them will probably offer you a job. It depends which one you feel most comfortable with and whether you think CHC will improve on the old Schreiner pay deal as it's all up in the air (though they do seem to be listening and responding positively to inputs from the new staff association.
Hope that helps. Whichever you chose, let us know how it works out.
