Will try to answer these as best i can.
1. Yes you can fly part time, but have to bid for it and it doesn't mean only 2 trips per month, you get a block of time off instead and the length of that block depends on which part time contract you're on.
2. Yes the african routes don't involve a large time change, and for me personally I find the eastern routes suit my body clock as i tend to stay on UK time. Going to the states is for me the hardest to deal with.
3. We do month long standby blocks which can include no home standbys or you may get quite a few. You will be called the night before between 5 and 8 and they will give you a trip or standby, if they don't call you're off.
Home standbys should be within 2 hours of LHR.
4. All depends on flight length and frequency of that service and sometimes you may get longer when 2 a/c types operate to the destination. Longer ones are PHX, MEX, MRU due to non daily flts. Would take me ages to list current slip lengths.
5. No
6. Not from LHR (exept to Cardiff for maintenance, which will go to standbys or time assignable). There are some shuttle flights downroute though, BAH-DOH and GRU-GIG/EZE.
7. Late check ins and early returns are best, these are JNB, CPT, HKG, SIN, BKK, GRU, and few others. Most of these trips are fairly senior.
8. Yes, with bidline you don't bid for a destination, you bid for a line with a month of work with specific trips on it. At stage 2 you bid for specific trips to fill in any gaps there may be (due to trips on the orignal line being clashed off due leave, sims, carry in trips or any other pre allocated duty.)
1. The 747 is a lovely a/c to fly, but don't come for that reason, handling opportunities are few and far between, because there are not many 2 crew trips and you will only do 1 or 2 sectors a month. As for the SOPs, they are not restrictive when it comes to manual flying, so long as you choose your time!
2. 90% of the skippers are very laid back and easy to get on with as with the rest of BA. In over 10 years have never had any significant problems, although there are inevitably a few names floating about!
3. The mood on long haul flights is generally relaxed. As long as you do your duties, getting out a magazine, paper, book etc is fine.
Hope that helps a bit, i'm sure others may be able to explain some of these things more clearly.