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Old 30th Oct 2005, 12:40
  #417 (permalink)  
Tokunbo
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Lagos
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rotorboy,

Caverton is a Nigerian company with 3 helicopters. I think they have a couple of contracts for Nigerian government organisations (the Ports and Maritime Authorities). They've been talking about a shuttle operation from a heliport in Victoria Island, but even though they've landed there recently there's still no sign of any shuttle operation (maybe because they don't have enough pilots and they have the wrong helicopters for the job).

As far as I know Caverton only have 5 pilots at present to try and crew an A109E, 365N and an AS350B. They have no training staff and no likelihood of getting an offshore contract with the the helicopters they have. They're starting to get desperate for crews and so far they've even managed only to recruit one Nigerian pilot, (that maybe tells you something, when even Nigerians don't want to work for a Nigerian company). That's another thing - they're a wholly Nigerian company so your contract of employment mat not mean a whole lot as it's governed by Nigerian law. If you have any dispute with them you've lost. Added to that I hear they're not so good at paying salaries on time - a typical thing with Nigerian employers. You'll live in nice looking housing but you see the Caverton guys out doing shopping around the supermarkets in Ikeja, so looks as if you have to do all your own shopping and cooking. I also hear tell that they often have no fuel for the generator - an essential in Nigeria, where the state electricity corporation NEPA, to all Nigerians means Never Electrical Power Always.

Advice - go for soemthing with one of the big boys - OLOG/Bristow/Pan African or CHC/Aero. The monthly salary may not look so good, but they're both short of pilots so with a few weeks workovers you can easily make more than you'd get while working 4 months on at a time with Caverton. With that schedule, makes you think their whole advert must be some kind of joke. They need to get real with what the other employers in Nigeria are paying in the 21st century. Also, both Bristow and Aero are re-equipping with a lot of new helicopters. Both are bringing inlots of S76C+, Bristow are getting new 412EPs, and both are also rumored to be getting AB139s and AS332L1s next year - and you're more likely to get paid on time. I'd think very long and hard before considering a company like Caverton unless you're desperate. If you have the hours requirements for them, you almost certainly have them for the other two and you then have the opportunity in the future to visit other countries that OLOG and CHC fly from in Africa, and globally.
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