Can't remember from the fleet predictions whether the A321's are to replace the older 757's or in addition. The long term plan is definitely to be an all airbus SH/MH operation, we just can't find anyone to take all our old 757/67's off our hands. Rod is all in favour of fleet rationalisation and would get swap of all the -400's for 777's if he could.
Not sure where WWW is getting his info but the T & C's for new joiners are by far the best they have ever been. The great differences in variable pay due to seniority, that used to exist, have become a thing of the past. Bidline is still the same bidline, they have been no changes. (LGW is on Carmen but there is no recruitment to LGW planned and once the 'bus goes to LGW they should get bidline as well).
Bidline is a system where the company produces a series of rosters that cover a whole month. These are known as trip lines. Pilots get to bid for the trip line of choice. You will get that trip line unless a more senior pilot has bid for it. To give the system a bit of flexibilty there are less trip lines produced than pilots, this difference is made up with BLIND lines. These are basically made up of all the trips that got left over in the initial bid process. As a new pilot you will get blind lines each month. Don't panic, you still get to put in a preference bid for your days off and trip destinations. Once your final roster is produced thats it. It won't and can't be changed. It is 100% roster stability. If you are new to the company then you won't to bid for anything other than a blind line in any case because the bidline system is so complicated you won't have a clue what is going on. The bidline rules come in a manual that is thicker than any flying manual (I'm not joking).
Bottom line is that on the 'bus you will mostly get tours around Europe with 14 days off a month. 777 you will be doing US East coast trips all year with Mid East trips during the summer. Nobody is junior for very long, although it may not seem this way at the time!