N Arslow,
Neither CHC nor Bristow has yet given any details of any pay rises for this year in Nigeria, though both are absolutely desperate for pilots now and either have, or will soon have, helicopters grounded by lack of crew to fly them. Your actual quality of life in Nigeria may well depend on which contract you work on and for which company. If you fly out of Escravos, you'll fly a lot and could end up locked down in the camp as happened recently. If you fly S76 for Bristow you'll be booted around all over the place, so take lots of changes of clothes. If you wok on a Shell contract you'll live in decent housing and have good sporting facilities in either Snake Island, Warri or Port Harcourt. If you work out of Lagos for Bristow on the S76 you'll live in pretty average housing in a rather dangerous area so you probably wouldn't want to go out at night. If you work in Port Harcourt for Bristow you may live in the Star King Hotel, which is pretty okay or out at Woji, which is not too bad but is in a rather dangerous area (as is the estate where the Shell pilots live). The Pan African guys in Escravos live in a fortified prison anyway, and even that has been over-run several times. If you fly for Aero you'll live in pretty lousy housing and work a lot with little or nothing to occupy your leisure. Both companies have recently responded to what they see as a deterioration in the security situation (probably just by watching some of the reports on CNN about the killing of an American and the kidnapping of 3 Italians in Port Harcourt) by effectively stopping staff from leaving their living areas except to go to work. This now means that if you work in Nigeria you are confined to camp. On some camps which have good facilities that's probably not too bad for 6 or 7 weeks (some people prefer not to venture out anyway). If you're working for CHC it's really like being in prison as they have very limited leisure facilities on their estate and despite a lot of talk, that hasn't really improved since they took over. There is a lot of talk about a new staff house, but so far talk is all it is. If you have the choice, I'd wait another couple of months and see if either company actually comes up with anything approaching a realistic pay scheme for putting up with the conditions in Nigeria. If not, both companies have many other IFR operations in places which are much nicer to live and work in, both in Africa and other parts of the world.