MYT are certainly happy to do deals on PT working that gets rid of people in the winter, not sure what will happen after the merger, though I suspect winter off will still be pretty easy to negotiate.
I don't think you will see a bid too early, my understanding is the 2 companies have agreed not to bid for anything like this until the merger is sealed (probably June) and then I would think they will be too busy with merging the companies to do anything much else for a while.