hold your horses guys. (or your pigs!)
If, indeed, redundancy has been offered then sadly I think that will be the end of the hold pool. Redundancy makes no sense unless you know for definate that you won't need any recruits for a minimum of about 3 years.
HOWEVER, this swine flu will have a temporary large effect on the industry, for, ooh about a week. Then everyone will realise its another overhyped scare by the nanny state ( probably to bury the rest of the news for a while) and forget about it. Every year 3000 to 30,000 people in the UK alone die from normal, bog standard 'seasonal' flu. This swine flu now appears to be no more or less than that. It'll all be over before anyone can say "what the hell are the World health organsiation thinking of".
I was sitting in my hotel room downroute last week, watching CNN and BBC world news (the only channels that weren't in russian!) and alot of economic data was coming out that appears to show the worst is over. Granted there was a cruel false dawn in 1931 that was merely a pause whilst the depression gathered pace, but all indications appear to be that the worst is over and we are slowly returning to normaility (note, not the crazy debt fuelled boom, but normality - which will seem a bit like a recession for those that have only lived their adult lives in the Blair / Brown era, and now have to live within their means!).
I still think BA can, and will take advantage of undercapacity in the marked when the turnaround happens.
Having said that, if they do have redundancies then all bets are off, although i will be surprised as i really didn't think things were that bad.