Pilots, engineers suspend picketing of Bristow Helicopters -

The National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) has suspended the picketing of Bristow Helicopters pending the determination and outcome of the meeting at the instance of Federal Ministry of Labour at Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday.

NAAPE in a statement said the suspension of the picketing which had gone on from Monday to Wednesday was in view of the intervention of Hadi Sirika, minister of Aviation.

Passengers who booked to fly with Bristow Helicopters Monday to Wednesday were stranded across different states in the country as a result of the strike by NAAPE.

Francis Igwe, Public Relations Officer of NAAPE, had explained some of the grievances of the union to include Bristow’s proposal to suspend the Conditions of Service negotiations and their deliberate subversions of established terms of agreement with NAAPE, insistence on benchmarking salaries of national pilots and engineers to an obsolete rate of N345/$1 coupled with the recent insistence on their proposal to implement N355/$1, a rate which is not obtainable on any legs foreign exchange window in the world while still paying to expatriate foreigners their full remuneration in USD.

Others, Igwe said, include failure to train qualified persons in Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL) and failure to fully reimburse individuals who have successfully completed their ATPL through self-sponsorship, disproportionate matching and capped reimbursement cash figures for self-sponsored pilots on ATPL with an employment bond of N30 million – an obvious unethical and sharp practice.

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers. She is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay. She holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos. As the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender. She has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria’s most prestigious media awards ceremonies. Ifeoma is a one-time winner of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the 'Aviation Writer of the Year' Category. She is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category. She has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations. Ifeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.