i heard today that enough crew have volunteered for voluntary redundancy to cover the 2000 headcount equivalent reduction.the problem is that unless new crew levels on the aircraft can be agreed,they cannot be released as there will be insufficient crew to man the aircraft.that is the reason why they have not been allowed to go already.
difficult negotiations ahead for this week.its all taking a long time to resolve,the original deadline for agreement was end of june if i remember correctly.