I was told ol' Bobby Suggs was on a recruiting trip down on Bourbon Street....observed a drunken lout laying face down in the gutter...walked over...rolled the guy onto his side....and offered him a job flying week on and week off for PHI.
The guy was heard to reply...."Piss off Bob....I am on break this week!"
The domestic helicopter industry in the United States has really suffered from the PHI/Bob Suggs school of Helicopter Management.
Overheard in Saudi at an Aramco dining facility....
Chief Pilot, American ex-PHI type, asks new pilot if he had ever worked for PHI before......to be told...."Not before I came to Aramco!"
Oh.....but how true that was!
Told to me by a Bristow Nigeria GM....."I don't go into the BRC bar anymore because I get tired of hearing about all the problems." When I asked if he how many of the problems ever got fixed.....all I got was a blank stare....the kind that suggested it was Eket for me for life.
How did the Black Sardine run the show in Lagos all by himself if it takes the dozens of management staff it does today?
When asked when Nigeria would go to six and six like ACN a Bristow Flying Superintendent stated "When we can no longer crew the operation on the eight and four roster."
Outa,
The advent of pilot unions resulted not from good conditions enlightened management....quite the contrary. It is true good economic times increase the demand for aircraft and crews and companies will make concessions during those times they might not make otherwise. But....and a big But it is...the pilots and engineers have to demand those concessions both by their abilities, skills, and experience but also by requiring increased pay and benefits before they will hire on or continue working for the operator.
The singular best way of achieving that is by means of a group effort...be it a union or some such device. The pilot unions in the United States have made a lot of progress in past years.
You have to remember some of the pilots in the United States oil patch went ten to twelve years without even a cost of living raise much less an overall pay raise.....and the operators like Bobby Suggs wonder why the pilots organized?
Are we not seeing the same thing in Bristow Nigeria now with the Nigerian Pilots?