eagle21
I would be amazed if BA facilities are only capable of training a maximum of 50 new entrant cabin crew every 5 to 6 weeks, but I admit that I have no idea what the max-chat training rate would be. You also need to remember that they are not necessarily confined to the current facilities either.
BA crew were recently polled to see how many want part time. BA could easily allow everyone that wants it, part time. To cope with this, they would have to up recruitment. BASSA would likely agree that all recruitment could be on temp contract to cover the lost man-power units, because BA could argue that they need to have the flexibility to offload crew if the part-timers change their mind and want to come back full time.
Once all the expensive ones are part-time, BA's costs are reduced. At the same time, a strike by a load of 50% part timers will only do half the damage.