Sandblaster,
After reading your rant (you do realise that bold in email speak is yelling don't you), I have come to the opinion that you have an axe to grind in this debate. As I said, service provision is the name of the game and if the NGO is doing a good job (and I haven't seen any stats to say they were poor providers), why change it when the other major factor is cost. If it was only a few bucks difference in cost, then okay. But when it is Millions (70 to 100 have been bandied about), something is up because the the government usually goes with the cheapest bid.
CHC are good operators and will do a good job, but the company is not in it for anything but the money. For example, the CHC Air Ambo in WA will cost the taxpayers of WA about 20Mill for 5 years, of which about 8 Mill is profit. At the end of it, the money is 'dead' with nothing to show. If I was a taxpayer in NSW, I would be asking questions about the money unnecessarily spent. As I can reasonably balance my pennies(or credit card), the best solution would be:
- The NSW govt buy the new helicopters reqd outright and give them to Careflight and Westpac to operate. That way they own them, can do what they want, and can trade them in later for newer ones.
- merge the infrastructure under one umbrella to minimise the duplication
- Staff would remain in the organisation as now flying better aircraft with no profit going overseas.
Holy cow batman, this just sounds like QES.
Thus sandblaster, I actually do get it and can stand back an judge with an impartial eye. Fly safe.