I saw this in Business Day. Does anybody in Nigeria know if it's true?
Aero to sack workers as it loses CHC contract
Aero Contractors has severed relationship with its helicopter supplier and oil and gas operations partner, Canadian Helicopters Corporation (CHC), over irreconcilable differences, BusinessDay has learnt.
The details of what led to the severance of relationship between the two companies were still sketchy as at press time, but a source told Businessday at the Lagos airport on Sunday that Aero Contractors unending financial challenges may have led to the development. CHC Helicopter entered Nigeria in 2004 when it purchased Schreiner Airways and inherited a 40 percent shares in Aero Contractors.
It has since supplied Aero Contractors helicopters for its off-shore services. The source said the fall-out of this development is that Aero would be forced to reduce its workforce, as it has already concluded plans to sack the trainee engineers in its rotary wings department. “I think Aero is losing this contract to one of the major helicopter operators but I can tell you that that will mean job loss for numerous Nigerian engineers who are in the service of the rotary wings department which is responsible for the oil and gas services.
Aero had made it a practice to employ Nigerians, especially in that area, but now that it is losing this contract, the plight of Nigerians in its employ remain vulnerable”, the source said. Aero competes with Bristow Helicopters and Caverton Helicopters in the oil and gas operations where the former holds a greater share of the air transport in Nigeria.
Aero’s problem with CHC started early this year when it could not pay for the helicopters it got from CHC after Oceanic Bank froze its accounts over a $200 million debt.
An earlier move by CHC in June to sever the relationship was saved by the timely intervention of the minister of aviation, Fidelia Njeze, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Aliyu Gusau, and Harold Demuren, Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).