I initially did not want to join in this thread as I am coming towards the end of my North Sea flying and feel that the pilots that have their careers ahead of them should be trying to sort things out. I find it disappointing that I have to agree with what Davie Emsee said “Apathy rules”.
As a lot of the pilots around today were not around when the North Sea Pilots Association (NSPA) was first muted. I have heard a lot of misconceptions about it in the crew rooms. I often wonder if this is management propaganda to prevent pilots considering it again. There seems to be a believe within the industry that as the North Sea Pilots Association did not work first time it will not in the future. The problem is that there is a lot of myth surrounding this not getting off the ground, with very little factual information.
For any such organisation to develop beyond the embryonic stage at a time when there was a surplus of helicopters, flying and ground crews, required wholesale support by the majority. At the time there was initially support from majority of the North Sea pilots from all of the companies. I was employed by Bond at that time and can say that there was a genuine feeling from the majority of the pilots to support it. This was short lived due to the following reason. Shortly after forming, and as Speechless Two indicated in his post, the driving force for the NSPA became embittered pilots who previously had been Bristow pilot strike participants and were not taken on when Bristows bought out British Caledonian Helicopters (BCAL). A large number of BCAL pilots were strike participants. In my opinion, the focus of the embryonic NSPA diverted from being for the industry as a whole and diverted as mechanism to ‘have a go at Alan Bristow’. This seemed to be the only focus that the NSPA wanted to target. It was at this stage that the supporters within Bond felt uncomfortable with the situation and their support started to wane, as I feel that of some of the other companies. This in turn diluted the effectiveness of the embryonic NSPA. I remember numerous meetings where this was pointed out to NSPA organisers only to fall on deaf ears. I do feel, like a lot of my contemporaries, that had it not turned into this single target campaign then it would have succeeded. I further feel that as an industry we would not be in the pickle we are today.
It is interesting to note that BALPA members gave wholesale support for the NSPA. BALPA members were sick and fed up with their organisation and felt that this would now give them a chance to try and sort out their helicopter industry, something fixed-wing BALPA, had not been able to do and also did not seemed interested at doing anything about. Little seems to have changed!
Would it succeed today?
I say it would. I would even say it would succeed even if there were not total support for it!
What everyone who says it would never succeed seems to forget is this. The North Sea industry as a whole has been driven very hard by the energy operators to reduce overheads drastically. To achieve this they have and are changing work practices. Today, the helicopter is an essential tool for the industry. Helicopters are not just used for crew changing (which could temporarily be done by boats if required). Two of many various further essential requirements for helicopters are as an essential prerequisite for their safety cases. A lot of installations do not have the number of safety standby vessels as before. This is because the helicopter fits in the safety scene. A lot of installations are now of the not normally manned status. This requires the helicopter to be used to man them up in the event of an outage to reinstate the production. I could state quite a few other conditions but the point is that the helicopter is an essential requirement for routine operations. No helicopters = no operations. No operations = no energy. No energy = no revenue. With the way the energy industry is today the helicopter is an essential mechanism and there is no easy alternative. What must also be considered is that there is very little spare capacity on airframes. Additionally, the pilot workforce has been honed down to the bare bones. I am lead to believe by my colleagues that in the Southern North Sea that if more than one pilot is off sick on one of the fleets then the operations almost grind to a halt. They only get by with the co-operation of numerous roster changes and a flexible approach by the pilots. This apparently is beginning to wane, as it has become the norm to get them by.
When the NSPA was first considered there was a lot of spare capacity in airframes and pilots. Today there is not. To switch pilots from one operator to another is no longer a tick in the box but does take time. Houdini in his posts made mention of beginning to feel unwell and asking if anyone else is feeling unwell. It would not require too many unwell pilots before operations in many fields came to a halt.
In all the time that I have been associated with the North Sea industry there has never been this vulnerability. This will not last forever. It is just a question of time before a third operator is brought in and the initiative will have been lost.
For those pilots who wish to have a better life flying on the North Sea, for goodness sake, stop being so apathetic and get things sorted out for your futures. Don’t come to the end of your careers saying if only …………. which is where you are all going!