One of the best clients for whom I ever flew was BP, the British oil giant. I was with them in Algeria for about seven years, from the very start of their large gas projects, right in the heart of the Sahara Desert, near the small towns of In Amenas and In Salah.
Oil prospecting tends to bring out the more original characters, which makes life interesting. But the actual corporate attitude of BP was also very easy to live with. And this was in part responsible for allowing some fine leaders to rise to the top of the pile, people it was a pleasure to work with and for.
If only one could say the same about the aviation industry, the vast majority of which, sadly, is now run by egotistical incompetents, who are nannied by bureaucrats whose only skills appear to be in the generation of mountains of paperwork at hallucinatory prices.
The BP projects started in the era before Health, Safety and the Environment (HSE), the industrial world’s new religion which has condemned the great sins of originality, instinct and enjoyment, saving countless lives and injuries in the process.
I am ashamed to admit that, when the new culture was introduced, I was one of the cardinal sinners.
As far as flying was concerned, we were out of the sight and the mind of the authorities. We were so far away from anywhere that we could not even talk to the powers that be on HF radio most of the time.
Of the ten destinations in the BP concession, only two had airstrips. At all the other places the pilots just looked for a suitable piece of desert, as close as possible to where the passengers wanted to go, and landed. After all, we were flying Twin Otters and the Twin otter just aches for that sort of challenge.
Fun like that is banned nowadays.
The pilots on the BP project were interesting as well. In fact we carried out our duties with such obvious enjoyment and enthusiasm that our bosses decided that our tours of duty should be increased from ‘Month-on-month-off’ to ‘Two-months-on-one-month-off’. This hardly affected morale at all, so our bosses, in a fit of pique, went one step further. Because we were doing two and one, we theoretically had the opportunity to earn more field allowances than our unfortunate colleagues, who were on month-on-month-off duty rotations. So?…obvious solution?…That’s it!…Cut the Field Allowances of the BP pilots, who work for eight months of the year and redistribute the money among the poor guys who only work for six.
Of course, it was never really the intention of the bosses to redistribute the cut allowances among the other pilots. The savings, on duty pay and travel expenses went, in fact, into substantial salary hikes for the office wallahs back in the ivory tower. The only salary adjustment I received in the last seven years I spent with the company was a fourteen percent pay cut…take it – or leave.
This little subterfuge backfired nicely though, and led me to believe, however fleetingly, that Right is occasionally Might. BP’s clients didn’t like their pilots being penalised for working on the BP contract and they said so…loudly…to our management. The reply from our bosses was terse to the point of arrogance and I was asked to read it by our enraged client:
”Sir,” it started. “In reply to your letter, we would like to point out that we do not tell you how to run your company and therefore we do not expect you to tell us how to run ours.”
It was signed by our Managing Director.
BP terminated our contract with due notice and our company was asked not to submit further tenders for BP contracts in the future. Thus, with one blinding piece of self-gratification, our lords and masters lost a contract for three aircraft, which continues to this day.
Little wonder that the company no longer exists. The surprising thing is that it managed to survive for over thirty years with such people running it. The plus side of all this, if there possibly could be one, is that if nincompoops of this calibre can rise to the top and become millionaires, then there’s hope for all of us! Most of the pilots continued on the contract with the next company to take up the BP baton, and one of those pilots was Andrew, who was to become a great friend.
Andrew was a large and colourful character who bore himself with that quietly good-humoured urbanity which comes with large size and a broadly experienced and well educated intellect. He had a small dot of beard on the point of his chin, just to prove that he could. Another highly commendable characteristic of this gentle giant was his inability to suffer foolish management gladly.
Andrew was a Captain on a Beech 1900D, an ungainly looking 19-passenger aircraft which had surprisingly sprightly field performance and operating economics which could even bring a smile to the face of an accountant.
The 1900 used to come down twice a week, to our desert camp at Teguentour, 74 miles north of In Salah, to carry out crew changes. Andrew was often the captain. From time to time, his first officer was a stunning blonde girl, called Chris, who was later to become a Boeing 747 pilot with South African Airways. Andrew confidentially assured us that Chris had a tattoo, and its location was a constant source of debate amongst the virtually exclusively male denizens of Teguentour.
Soon after six every evening, when the day’s work had wound down, beers were served in the little open-air bar, outside the main office block.
Teguentour became famous for its relaxed and convivial evenings. The dialogue was spiced with broad-reaching and often humorous exchanges, both political, spiritual and cultural, with Chris’s tattoo to fall back on if the conversation flagged.
When Andrew was due down for a night stop, the evening’s entertainment was livened up by the choice of a ‘Subject for Discussion’, which often provoked a lively debate, after the vocal chords had been loosened by the amber nectar.
Global Warming, for example, was on the programme one evening, Those in Favour, Those Against. Andrew and I were In Favour and everybody else was, probably quite rightly, Against.
Andrew was invited to present our case and he launched into a professorial speech concerning the beneficial effects of the much maligned and misunderstood weather phenomenon. “Teguentour,” he said, with the authority of the internet and local knowledge to support his argument, “Has received more rain in the previous twelve months than has fallen here in the last thirty years.”
We had to agree with that, because Nigel, the Medic, had told us and he was the weather geek on the camp. “Eighty percent of the world’s population lives within thirty metres of sea level.” We all bowed to his statistic.
“If Global warming melts the ice caps, as predicted, the sea levels are set to rise by anything up to twenty metres, possibly more, and there is going to be an awful lot of people looking for somewhere to live.” He paused, masterfully, for acknowledgement, which was duly given, because we wanted to find out where he was going with this little nugget.
“Teguentour is at an altitude of 2076 feet above sea level, so I would suggest to you, Gentlemen and Chris, that we should all try and buy plots around Teguentour before the prices go through the roof!”
Andrew triumphantly revealed an entrepreneurial side to his character which had previously been hidden from public scrutiny.
“Look at the amenities, for a start.” Andrew’s hands joined the argument, gesticulating their support for his points,
“Shopping facilities in In Salah, only seventy-four miles to the South, if you can find any there. Gas on tap, only three kilometres away, directly below our feet. Convenient weekly rail connections to Algiers, from Biskra, only four hundred and twelve nautical miles to the north east. Eight months of glorious sunshine, highlighted by only four months of impenetrable sandstorms.”
“A location close enough to the old French nuclear testing grounds to discourage the casual tourist and, if I may say so, surrounded by the most intelligent and charming collection of people you could ever wish to meet!”
A warm glow descended upon the assembled company and smiles softened the features of even the most hardened Anti-Global-Warming campaigners. “And, in conclusion, Lady and Gentlemen, let us not forget that this is all made possible by a life-giving increase in rainfall brought to us by the miracle of Global Warming.” Andrew sat down to thunderous applause and I was saved from losing the day with my speech.
Andrew’s speeches caused the little bar to be noticeably fuller on crew-change nights. Even the more reclusive members of the workforce could be tempted out of their cells to take part in the debate and to allow their imaginations to wander while gazing at the golden allure of Chris.
That tattoo must be really low if it is covered by a pair of jeans that small! Or maybe it nestles between those beautiful firm young…”