OK, after jumping on someone in another thread for complaining on pprune instead of going to ask managment directly I took my own advice.
Stopped in to see the HOFO today to ask if the rumour was indeed true. Nice, approachable guy that he is he sat me down and explained it fully. I'll anotate waht he said here.
Basically, they are short on the 330/340 if they take senior FO's off the 340 to upgrade on the 320 (even now you see captains flying with captains). They have also been short staffed due to the backlog in the sim due to the move from Doha. That backlog is clearing by the end of the month and the day missed in the long event is being added to the short event which begins in the next few weeks.
The plan is to cross train the 330 only pilots in August to allow movement from the 320 to the 340 and, more importantly, so they can take 340 FO's for the upgrade- which makes movement from the 320 possible. The DEC on the 767 are on 1 year contracts to allow some space for the upgrades to be completed.
That is straight from the head office. The VPO's last letter still stands.
I guess the grass is always greener - I'll trade any 767 FO - you can take my 330 blocks without overtime to Europe where my per diems get eaten up in no time - I'll take your O/T blocks and save my per diems. I estimate the average 320/767 FO walks home with AT LEAST 500 dinar more than me each month after OT, TAFB and destinations where the food is reasonably priced.That is with minimal OT--if he does 90-100 hours it is much more than that.