At the moment, they have a plan to reduce the number of 747 hulls in operation quite significantly over the coming year. Apparently the plan is not to scrap them, but to take out of service the odd one with lots of faults, fix it and then leave it parked behind a hangar or whatever until another one is getting a bit tired and then swap them over. The idea behind this is that it will give the engineers more time to fix things and also enable the company to respond to a route that suddenly becomes commercially viable, and I guess it will allow greater flexibility during disruption too. The pilot establishment will be based on the current forecast plan, therefore if the company suddenly decides to open up a route or increase frequency on a route outside the current plan's forecast, I reckon more type rated ex-hold poolers will be given a phone call (as per the recent Airbus at LGW requirement). Once those guys have been depleted, I think DEP selection will open up again. The stuff about the plan of keeping out of service 747s operational is only what I have been told by trainers, so it could just be rumour. The rest is just my own prediction of what the company will do. None of this is factual apart from the current plan to reduce the number of 747 hulls considerably.