Etienne, you'll need to simplify it for us domestic bush hicks that dream of the offshore bucks. The guys tell me they will make over $100,000 US working for six months in Nigeria this year on a six week on, six week off shift, don't know if it is Bristow or CHC. Who cares whether it is paid in cash at the end of the day or the end of the month, or if more comes one month than the next. At the end of the year I compare what I brought in for how many days I had to pull collective.
Can you clear up the whole year/level thing? You say everyone starting at CHC gets Level 14 and stays there, but the Bristow guys start lower and then catch up to CHC after four or five years then start to stretch ahead? I guess if you plan to be in Nigeria for at least ten years (five to catch up, plus another five to make up for what you lost in the first five) then Bristow may have an edge. That seems like a long time to commit to that particular country.
Here if you spend a couple of seasons with the same operator you could be high man on the pole. 25 years with Bristow to max out, I guess you'd have to start before you were 30 and hang in there to get at least a couple years in at the top rate. Any older and the numbers don't add up.
Bristow over CHC doesn't seem that obvious to me.
Malabo