I think a lot of people on here & BA crew I speak to are missing the point re New Fleet. In my opinion, NF is not actually what BA necessarily want. It would be costly to set up and maintain, reduce flexibility with rostering and scheduling, and would have issues with regards to experience on board - I'm not sure the company will want the First cabin on a 744 to be crewed entirely with trainees when these customers are the main source of BA's income. Granted there are some ex-temps in the hold pool who could bring a bit of experience and this is probably why BA are keeping them there & have been contacting them regarding their interest in coming back. But a lot of these guys do only have about 10 months flying experience. Also, who will be the "in charge" crew member? Are they hoping that experienced crew from the existing fleets will transfer to NF to get a quick promotion? Or will they roster CSD's/ Pursers on NF flights until they can promote within the fleet? I'm not saying that BA won't introduce NF....in fact I think that after all this they are probably prepared to do so, but it is very complex and costly and far from ideal for BA, given their current financial situation and the fact they seem likely to be paying out substantial amounts in redundancy payments over the coming months.
What I really believe they want is new contracts for new crew who will fly within the existing LHR fleets on different terms & conditions. Over time, what is to stop BA from crewing the lucrative routes like SIN, SYD, NRT etc. more & more with the "new contract" crew, leaving crew on existing contracts to do all the East Coast USA/ Indian etc. nightstops. If the hourly rate is anything like at LGW, a three day BOM trip would generate something in the region of £100 in allowances for the new contract crew. I'm not entirely sure what current LHR WW crew get for a BOM trip but it can't be much more than that. So where are the savings from future crew going to come from? Rostering them on the long range trips so over time the company will be spending less and less on things like Box payments, expensive meal allowances in NRT etc. Ok the 900 hour rule may come into it if all the new contract crew are doing is long range trips, but then Qantas & Air NZ still manage to keep their LHR based crew within 900 hours despite them only operating long range flights.
Many BA crew I speak to seem to think that as long as their T&C's remain the same and NF doesn't eventuate, they will be ok and the savings will mostly be made from future crew. But given that most main crew on post 97 contarcts rely on trip allowances to boost their basic pay and in particular the more lucrative ones, the savings will also come from them in the form of lower allowances due to getting less and less of the lucrative trips. Whether the new recruits are flying on a seperate fleet is, as far as I can see irrelevant. BA can and will want to make the savings from the new contracts and will almost certainly prefer to do this without the expense of NF. So if BASSA does back down on a strike if BA agree to drop NF again, they will be playing right into BA's hands.