Caladonian Airborne... Truth in the rumour?

[HeliEng]

Rumour has it in the back end of beyond here in Dyce, that following the recievers going into Caladonian, Mr Bond has pretty much sealed the lease on their hangar!!

Anyone have any news on this one??

"Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[coalface]

Bond did have a planning application many years ago for a helicopter facility near what used to be called the Hawk hangar. Maybe he has reactivated that. There is plenty of landside space and it would give him a prime operating site on the airfield. Not a lot of airside space though.

[HeliEng]

Rumour has it that he has definatly got "The terminal" but the new one that has sparked people off is this one about the Caladonian Airborne hangar. It was definatly about that one, now the recievers have gone in etc....

Will be interesting to see what comes of all this.

. .So, Coalface are you part of the Hummingbird troop????

. ."Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[coalface]

'fraid so.

[HeliEng]

See you on the line then!!!

. ."Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[roundwego]

From what I hear from my ex colleagues in Aberdeen, it sounds like the oil company customers are desperate to get Bond back as the present service being provided is allegedly worse than ever. They don't seem to think much of the Scotia management efforts.

[chopperpunter]

As an offshore traveller of many years, I can confirm the previous posts comment. The helicopter service we get today is worse than it has been for many years. The merger of British international and Bond has been a disaster. I have regularly used Bristow in the past but the contract was latterly given to Bond. Generally, both companies provided a good service. The check in was always friendly and you were treated as a human being. The flights were almost always on time and the pilots always seemed to care about keeping the passengers informed with what was going on if there was any change to the flight. Nowadays we are treated like cattle. The staff are obviously working under a lot of pressure and flights always seem to be late. There also seems to be a lot more break-downs. I am told that most of the ex Bond management have been given the push and it is the old British International people that are running the show. If this is the case, then good luck to bond if they are coming back to compete because it is about time the service levels were brought back up to what they were like before.

PS I am new to this and as a non pilot I was suprised to get access to this BB but there is a lot of interesting info here. Well done to the administrators for providing such a good BB and also to the contributers.

[HeliEng]

Chopperpunter,

I feel that I have to make some response to your comments.

I work for the company in question, and have only worked for them a short time (i.e: Was not with Bond/BIH), and as my alias suggests I am part of the engineering team.

I think that it is a great shame that you feel this way about the service that is being provided for you, and I don't think that it is right you feel this way.

I can obviously only speak from what I have seen/experienced, and this will only be from an engineering point of view, and possibly a little blunt.

Day-to-day engineers are busting their butts to minimise delays as much as possible. Every delay that is down to us, we have to justify. Likewise with other departments (ops, frieght etc..)

Taking today as an example, out of about a dozen delays, ONE was an engineering delay, and caused a delay of a maximum of 10 minutes. (I am just taking this as an example, as I can still remember it!!!)

I don't know how you guys are treated in the terminal, or what you are told when delays occur, but from my perspective, we (engineering) are not THAT MUCH to blame. (No doubt Coalface will disagree with me!!!)

The terminal that we are operating out of at the moment, simply isn't big enough for the amount of flights and quantity of passengers that we have.

When the NEW terminal is completed on the West side of the airport, it will be bigger and more suitable to cope with the volume of passengers.

Not going to bore you anymore, but that is what I see and how I feel.

"Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[coalface]

For Chopperpunter,

I am afraid you are just another victim of the huge pressures the helicopter operators were put under by the oil companies.

We are a high cost industry and are not able to turn the tap on and off at the oil companies whim. The down turn of the late 90's caused us to to have to cut costs significantly and for their own survival, CHC who owned BIH made a high risk move and bought out Helikopter Service Group which owned Bond. Had they not done this, BIH would have folded (no bad thing some would say).

Having borrowed huge amounts of money to buy HKS, CHC had to get as much cash back as possible to repay the banks. The new company was completely wrong footed by the industry which suddenly demanded a big increase in activity. Having laid off staff and lost some very competent managers, we were expected to react overnight.

We are still behind the drag curve with insufficient facilities, insufficient skills and a totally demotivated workforce. HeliEng is right by saying that line engineering is working their butts off trying to keep the maximum number of aircraft on line and they are doing the best they can in very difficult circumstances. In the meantime, senior management's prime objective is to release as much cash back to Canada.

Those of us at the front line are doing our best to keep the service running but until we get some stability to build ourselves up again, things are going to remain somewhat difficult.

[chopperman]

Chopperpunter,. .I totally agree with Coalface and Helieng and would like to add my little bit.. .Not only are Scotia building a new terminal to cater for the greater number of passengers, they are also investing heavily in new aircraft. They have received some new Super Puma Mk2's and more are on order. Sadly it's not a case of going to the local showroom, buying one and driving it away, they don't come of the production line very quickly. They also have options on the S92, but that will not be in production for a while yet.. .Chopperman.

[HeliEng]

Chopperman,

Indeed, two more Mk 2's to come and I think a 225 has been confirmed also.

Stick with us Chopperpunter, I think things are on the up.

"Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[offshoreigor]

Chopperpunter,

As per the above postings, Ya get what you pay for! If you don't pay much, don't expect the latest and greatest toys! The Guys in the NS Patch are doing a great job with what they have to work with and that goes for both sides of the fence, Humingbirds or otherwise!

Cheers, <img src="eek.gif" border="0"> OffshoreIgor <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

PS. There are three types of people in the world:

1. Those who make things happen;

2. Those who watch things happen; and

3. Those who wonder what the F@ck happened!

[UmmphUmmph]

Well when the new tin shed...sorry terminal is finished and in service it will be entertaining to watch virtually the entire airport operation operate from the same side! Hope you helicopter guys and gals have lots of fuel in your tanks! It's gonna have a big impact on runway utilisation rates - particularly when 16 is the runway in use.

Rant over, back to sleep..

[U R NumberOne]

Ummph speaks the truth, although 34 will be just as bad when the entire (current) North Sea fleet tries to depart from C3! <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

Disucssions with BAA, Scotia and ourselves will hopefully take place well before the move date so we can get some sort of workable procedures in place.

[ppng]

I've worked from both sides of the airfield and for all three companies. Today I have no particular axe to grind but what REALLY worries me is that EVERYONE, from ATC to Airport Taxis (but not our MD, it seems) can see that working from the East-side gives us a competitive advantage but we are STILL going to do this stupid move. WHY, Mr Calvert? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[pitchlink]

Isn't that the side Brintel used to operate from?!! It seems that it is the same mentality which reregistered G-BOND - G-CHCE. Anything red can't be seen to be kept. We seem to have all got over the the fact that we were once two companies, but the message does not seem to have reached upstairs quite yet!!

[roundwego]

Looks like the "anything red must go" includes the ex red management. I hear through the grapevine that yet another ex Bond manager has resigned. Peter Donaldson who has held various management jobs in the helicopter world in both Bristow and Bond over the last 25 years has allegedly had enough. Peter was a very experienced and competent manager/pilot who was respected by many, including the customers. There can't be many ex Bond people left. What is going on to cause so many to jump?

[pedroalpha]

Bond was the largest and most successful North Sea operator at the time of the hostile CHC take-over in 1999. The Bond management experience, style and will to be the best was quickly eroded by the total apathy of the Brintel/CHC now Scotia management. Better dead than red!

Welcome back Bond Helicopters!

[BHPS]

If they were that successful, how come they allowed themselves to be sold to CHC? Surely they should have made a bid for BIH (as was)?

There were several stories around that Bond got contracts from the other operators at such low rates that they could never make a profit on them let alone break-even. If true, doesn't sound like a successful management to me.

[kingsardine]

Born again Bond were head hunting in Ireland recently, maybe some of the under paid CHC Ireland Boys will be flying the North Sea again very soon.

[pitchlink]

BHPS you seem to miss the point!! It was stated that Scotia management had missed the opportunity of gaining a commercial advantage by continuing to operate from the East side and save all the congestion which seems inevitable now over on the west. My point was that the present management seem to be cutting off their nose despite their face because the East side was traditionally the Bond side. At no point during the thread does there seem to be any comment on the strengths and weaknesses of either management team, or whether they were running contracts at a loss. It seems to me that all the North Sea companies have been guilty of that at one time or another!!

[roundwego]

A couple of points for BHPS;

You say-. .""If they were that successful, how come they allowed themselves to be sold to CHC? Surely they should have made a bid for BIH (as was)?""

Bond did make a bid for BIH after they were put up for sale by the Maxwell administrators. The purchase was banned by the monopolies and mergers commission.

You say-

"There were several stories around that Bond got contracts from the other operators at such low rates that they could never make a profit on them let alone break-even. If true, doesn't sound like a successful management to me."

A company that did this could never stay in business for any length of time. Bond grew and grew for over twenty years. It may have taken contracts at lower rates but it could afford to do so because it was efficient. The sale to HKS was a risk because Bond then became part of a plc which was then open to predatory purchase as happened with CHC.

[ 22 February 2002: Message edited by: roundwego ]</p>

[BHPS]

Pitchlink:

My comments were in response to Pedroalpha's comments only. However, I will agree with you that any company that tries to fly contracts at a lose wont last long.

[Rotorbike]

So rumour has it that Bond have offices in Aberdeen but no contracts.

Anyone got any rumours on when this might change??

[HeliEng]

Rumours around ABZ is that they are bidding for contracts as we speak.

The ones I can remember being mentioned are:

1. BP and. .2. Schlumberger.

I am sure there were a couple more though.

They certainly do have offices in Aberdeen too.

"Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"

[roundwego]

But with what aircraft?

[HeliEng]

I believe they were saying a heap for S76 A+'s.

But then another one has recently surfaced that they are in talks over the S-92?????

. ."Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue!"