According to an interview poublished in Nigeria newspaper, the Daily Independent, Bristow aims to totally Nigerianise its pilot workforce. However, I notice that the target date of 2015 for this happening which was mentioned in previous articles now seems to have been dropped
The General Manager, Human Resources, Bristow Helicopters, Mr Femi Collins, in a recent interview, with Correspondent, Abel Orukpe, said that apart from the fact that the rotary wing giant will continue to train Nigerian pilots and engineers to reduce the number of expatriates working in the country, the company’s target is to have 100 per cent Nigerian pilots. He also spoke on the number of Nigerians Bristow has trained as pilots in the last five years, and that training of pilots is a huge investment. Excerpts
How many Nigerians is Bristow Helicopters training this year, and where?
As it is in our tradition in Bristow Helicopter, we are about to train another set of Nigerians to become pilots in our ever expanding Nigeria aviation industry. This is not the first time we are doing that. In fact, in Bristow we are noted for incubating Nigerian pilot in the rotary wing of the aviation industry. We have the highest percentage of Nigerians trained as pilots in the helicopter wing of the aviation industry. In other words, there is virtually no helicopter aviation company that you do not see ex-Bristow pilots well bread in the Bristow tradition of safety. We do this yearly, and this year, out of over 2,000 candidates that applied for sponsorship, we have selected 16, and these people are today being given final briefs before they depart for their various trainings. The training itself is divided into two. Many of them who have no experience in aviation at all would be sent to the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in Zaria, and the College of Aviation in Ilorin. The idea is for them to be given an introductory lesson in flying. And they will be there for between seven and eight weeks.
Another reason why we are sending them to these schools is to take advantage of the local expertise in the aviation training in Nigeria so as to ensure that the Nigerian local content policy is deepened.
After successfully completing these seven to eight weeks, they will now be sent to Bristow Academy in Florida United States.
Those among them that have aviation knowledge and already in aviation in what we call Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL), will fly directly to Bristow Academy in Florida in the next two months to commence their training. Their training is expected to last for about 12 months, after which they will become full-fledged pilots and be ready to fly.
As I said earlier, this is our contribution to the Nigerianisation policy in Nigeria’s aviation industry. We expect that when they come back and start flying it will reduce the number of expatriate pilots in Nigeria.
We have continually done this for many years. Even our managing director is a product of this process, Capt Obinna Ojiakor, the deputy head, flight operations is also a product of the this notable selection process of Bristow Helicopters. It is our hope that these 16 successful young Nigerians, which also includes three women will be valuable assets, not only to Bristow helicopters, but Nigeria as a country. Our selection process is very professional and rigorous and for them to have scaled through these rigorous processes is great kudos to the selection process and also to their parents. They are the pride of Nigeria.
What does it cost Bristow to train these crops of Nigerians?
Our cost starts from when we put in advertisement on the pages of newspapers, going through the selection process to when they go for local training and the US training. Our budget is to spend $250,000 per candidate; that is an estimate, because sometimes courses overseas go higher because of certain changes. The one we did last year, we had had to increase it by another 10 per cent. So, by the time you increase the $250,000 by another 10 per cent, you are looking at $300,000 to train just one of them.
Is there a bond between Bristow and the pilots you train?
What I will say is that our target is to have 100 per cent Nigerian pilots. Today that is a dream because we still have a lot of expatriate pilots here in Nigeria. The training of these pilots is like a marathon and we do not get to train more than 10 at a time and when they come, they get infused into the system and at best it just reduces the number of expatriate pilots we would have taken. And because every human being has insatiable appetite for nice things, some of them leave, but our pride as a company is that when they leave, they do not leave the country, they get jobs within Nigeria. That was why I said in my opening remarks that Bristow has a higher percentage of trained pilots in the helicopter wing of aviation in Nigeria today, such that if you go to any of our competitors you will find pilots who were trained by Bristow Helicopters, and that is our joy. There will always be the need for us to train Nigerians. It is Bristow Helicopters modest contribution to the development of Nigeria economy.
What other measures have you put in place to ensure that your Nigerians pilots are not poached by bigger rotary operators?
I cannot think of any better example other than the Managing Director of Bristow Helicopters, Capt Obinna, and many more outside, who are Nigerians occupying strategic position in the business today and even outside Nigeria within the Bristow group. What we are saying is that we have a robust succession plan for Nigerians who are pilots, engineers, or even non-pilots and engineering roles. Some of them have already transited into the managing role. For example, my colleague here is Business Development Manager of Bristow, while Capt Obinna is the Deputy Head of Flight Operations. One day he would transit to be the Head of Flight Operations like the managing director. They are so many. We ensure that from day one, you are employed, we let you know that apart from flying we are also going to develop you into very a capable manager, so that one day you will hold position of responsibility in the company.
What has Bristow’s done for NCAT?
Without sounding immodest, in the last three years we have done very well for NCAT. We have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between us, whereby we train our engineering cadets, and every year we send a minimum of 12. As we speak, we have about 32 students in the school and we have another 20 waiting to go to the school and this is the trend every year. We have decided to renovate and refurbish two classrooms with modern equipment. We are going to send a helicopter to the school to enhance its training capability. We also ensure that we send tools and text books to the school again to assist in capacity building of the lecturers, and we are still doing more. We have sent at least four lecturers of the institution to advance train-the-trainer’s courses in the United States, and another two are also waiting to go there. The last two came back last week, another batch will be going there in another one month or so, and this will be a continuous exercise.
Are you extending the same benevolence to Aviation College Ilorin?
That is where we are sending these young Nigerians to in the first instance. As you know, the Aviation College at Ilorin is new and we have done our due diligence and we believe that it is time to send our trainees to the school, because we know that they will learn and that the school will add value to their new careers.
Bristow has done much with regards to training of pilots, yet you don’t publicise it?
I think one of the things that we have not been doing very well in the past is to blow our trumpet. We believe in doing this quietly and impacting on positively on the economy of Nigeria. But we have since realised that people don’t know what we do. So this is one of the outcomes meeting the media.
Does Nigeria market have the capacity to employ these Nigerians you have trained?
In the past, helicopter business was about Bristow Helicopter and our next door neighbor, but today you have many more helicopter companies. What does that tell us? There is no way all our trained pilots can remain with us because motivation depends on individual. What motivates me may be different from what motivates you. Some people may just feel like trying what is happening in company B, and when they leave in that manner there is nothing we can do about that. Employment is not about slavery. We cannot force people to stay or to leave. But having said that, we believe that none of our newly trained pilots in the last five years have remained with us, and will continue to be with us. Like I said there are many Nigerians who are chief pilots and people holding various positions within the system.
How is Bristow’s Corporate Social Responsibility like?
We cannot put a tag on how much because that is what you want. The ones we have told you but there may be more because it may interest you to know that for the fact that you have been trained as a pilot and you are back does not mean the end of the training. In fact, that is the beginning. As you periodically, probably every six months, pilots have to go for recurrent training and that cost a lot of money. Changing a pilot from one aircraft to another called conversion is extremely expensive and this happens regularly, especially where you have various types of the aircraft. It is a way of making sure that you maximally utilise the expertise of your pilots. So, if you put all of these in proper perspective, it is a huge investment. We are talking of pilots and we are not talking of engineers whose training you cannot describe, because they have to ensure that the aircrafts are in good health. So, they are continually training with one aircraft type or the other. So we have a lot of investment that is geared towards CSR.
Last year 2012, we sent 11 Nigerian pilots to US for training, this years it is 16, and before the end of year we hope to make it up to 20, based on what we see in the market. In the past five to six years, we have trained more than 70 here in Nigeria, and we have been doing this constantly for about 25 years now.