Helipiloto,
Oh good grief, I have no particular love for Bristow and I worked for them, Schreiner, CHC and Caverton during my years in Nigeria.
I very much doubt that you woke up with a foot of water in your room as the doors are normally so badly fitting that floods quickly drain away. Burst pipes are scarcely Bristow's fault; there are shoddy standards all over Africa.
When I was with Schreiner/Aero I really did wake up with nearly a foot of water on the floor, but that was because our accommodation was on an estate which flooded every rainy season because of poor drainage in that part of Warri. We often used to give that house up for weeks at a time and had to walk to the staff house either wearing wellingtons or roll up our trousers because of the water depth.
When I moved into my brand new Caverton apartment in Lagos, a lot of electrical appliances burnt out on day 1 due to faulty wiring and I watched as water streamed out of the bathroom wall and all the plaster fall off because of a badly connected pipe behind it. Even a few months ago when I moved into my brand new Chinese-built apartment in Dar es Salaam (paid for by me, not my company), I returned from work on my first day to see water pouring onto the bedroom floor making a delightful scale model of Lake Tanganyika
and the plaster peeling off bedroom wall because of a faulty pipe. The first week in my rand new apartment in the block built for the Shell Pension Fund trustees at Elelenwo, the central air conditioning stopped functioning. In my apartment in Woji the water was suddenly replaced by a foul green slime coming out of the taps. I've lived in some dreadful accommodation in different parts of Africa (and yes, the BRC, which should have been bulldozed and replaced years ago counts among the worst), but the best I live in during my time in Nigeria was the Bristow accommodation when we were still in Elelenwo (that was also the safest until the decision was made to move to far less secure accommodation, supposedly to cut journey time, but really as everyone knew, to save money).
I even had to move rooms in a hotel in West Palm Beach when I was there doing sim training with CHC as there was a flood in the room above mine and the water was coming through the ceiling! BTW, plumber is spelt with a 'b'.
It's just Africa and if you can't cope with a minor thing like that, you're probably working on the wrong continent.
When you find a bone you think is from a rat in your food, you keep it to make sure it's identified as a rat and make a complaint. Some of my best meals in Warri were in local restaurants (in the days when it was still safe to go out) and I found grass cutter (bush rat) to be tasty and nutritious
.
I found the health insurance (when it was with AXA/PPP) to be excellent and easy to use on the several occasions I had need to use it. Local medical facilities in Nigeria are mostly well below western standards, but Bristow does have emergency medical repatriation insurance. I'm not sure if they still have a contract with SOS International in Port Harcourt, which is an excellent facility for immediate paramedical treatment and preparing people for medical evacuation flights. I don't know how well the loss of licence insurance works.
When I was made redundant by Bristow last year, all the money in the Bristow pension scheme was paid to me within 8 weeks of my departure. The company 7% contribution made it well worth while.
I mostly enjoyed my time in Nigeria, though it's not such fun now because of all the curfews due to MEND and Boko Haram activity mean that most people are effectively on a 24 hour curfew. I survived 3 attempted hijackings, 3 attempted kidnappings, but then again I was mugged on my first night in Douala too. The extra allowances paid in Nigeria are the recompense for the added hardship and danger. I'd quite happily go back.
SAS,
Yes BHNL does still use BIAGL, though at present new hires from USA are employed by another company.