I hear that CHC made something of a cock-up over the paperwork of their new 365N3 for Nigeria which is considerably delaying its arrival in Nigeria. They're also supposed to be bringing in another S76C+ - just hope they'll have enough crews. Despite having been the owners of aero for over a year now they still don't seem to have finished sorting out a salary structure for their expats in Nigeria, and some of the rumours about what's happening are making other CHC Global employees unhappy. There's also the fact that although they're spending some money on new helicopters, the accomodation and facilities they have for expats in Port Harcourt are well below those which many Bristow pilots have.
After many months of advertising 'Caverton Shuttle coming soon to Lagos and Port Harcourt' there's still no sign of a shuttle in either location, despite their helipad in VI looking close to completion, lots of photos of their new helicopter on their website and a big TV screen in Port Harcourt airport advertising all their destinations. Maybe they don't have enough crew to start a shuttle operation? I look forward to seeing or hearing about their first scheduled flight to the VI Heliport. Let's hope they can generate enough revenue from it to give them a return on the considerable expense they must be incurring in setting it up.
Bristow too, seem to be experiencing many delays in the arrival of the Bell 412 EPs for exxon/Mobil in Qua Ibo Terminal. Rumour also has it that they may end up operating Bell 412s for Shell who want to dump their EC 155s (which surely always were a massive overkill for a lot of the short-range onshore flights they carry out).
Well, igor will doubtless be complaining about Nigeria dominating this thread so how about some input as to what's happening in the other West African offshore giant, Angola?
I hear that Exxon/Mobil are very unhappy about the performance of Schreiner/CHC in Cameroon and that renewal of the contract is by no means certain. Rumour has it that they have already replaced the General Manager, Deputy General Manager and Operations Manager there in an effort to placate the client. A number of people are wondering if the ex-GM will be posted to Nigeria soon - and if so, in what capacity
