A quick company synoptic.
Next years Priam (dreamsheet) bid has now been concluded for internal transfers between fleets.
What has this to do with the swimmers I hear you ponder? Quite simply it allows manpower planning to dovetail DEP courses in with the course allocations for fleet transfers. This basically means that the new DEP courses can now start to be programmed in and swimmers pulled from the pool starting from, hopefully, January.
As I'm sure you are all aware, if you've been following this thread, the stagnation in BA has lasted about 4-5 years thus the amount of unfrozen internal bidders was huge. Add to this the two new aircraft types and their initial type requirements and the whole transfer plot has become large and hazy. It's getting to the end and much clearer now!!!! A380 is going to be, relatively, senior in both seats, 777 has become an even more senior fleet, 744 has, in the RHS, become very junior and the big surprise was that the 787 has gone quite junior in both seats.
Rumour on the streets is the recently purchased slots at LHR are feeding the new 773 aircraft with extra long haul and this could, repeat, could lead to DEP 777 starting next year.
The decision on LGW has been put back to, I believe, about December with respect to the new aircraft type with three in the running, Embraer, B737 NG, A320NEO. Word on the streets is for cross fleet commonality thus, from the rumours and crew banter, the A320NEO is the slight fore runner. GE's dismission of future engine enhancement and the inability to hang a geared turbofan off the 73's low slung wing has caused some grumbling amongst the 'suits' and the addition of an Embraer would have associated engineering cost increases. Time will tell.
As always with BA when things start to move they move quickly in the manner of crisis managment and reactive ops not proactive.
Good luck.