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You are quite correct in your statement that Bristow 'piggy-backed' Scotia for the pay deal in 2001, the 'famous' benchmarking deal. However, the last pay round was in 2005, and the two deals were completely separate and different. CHC tied themselves into a five year deal, while Bristow stuck to a three year deal. The Bristow deal brought salary up to above CHC scales and retained the top four scales: CHC lost the top four scales if I remember correctly. The Bristow deal also included tying 'professional allowances' (training pay, dual rating, winch quals etc) to year 10 Captain's scale, thus allowing the allowances to increase annually. CHC may have something similar, but this was a first for Bristow. Overall, the Bristow 2005 deal covered more than ten different issues, all with success.
As the Bristow deal was for only three years, they will back at the table two years before CHC Scotia. Depending on the outcome of those negotiations, will CHC Scotia be 'piggy-backing' on the Bristow deal when they start their negotiations? They would be foolish not to do so!
As for "losing pilots to Scotia": why would a year 10 captain at Bristow leave to join Scotia to become a year 4 SFO? Or at best, a year 5 captain? If Scotia were offering a direct crossover, year 10 for year 10, then there could be some movement. Even if Scotia captains earned £1000 a year more, a year 10 Bristow captain would have to work many years to make up the difference if he could only join as a year 5. Not to mention seniority and the possiblilty of redundancy in the future? So why bother?
Both companies have some very good aspects to their terms and conditions: both have some bad ones. And of course there is always Bond Offshore!
Lets face it, the grass isn't always greener on the other side!
bondu
(My apologies for the thread creep!!)