There have been a few mentions recently of "an October shakeup" and how it's something people are waiting for. As I am not sure what this exatly refers to could someone please explain?
Is it something that happens every October?
The "shake up" does indeed happen every year. It is the first output of Crystal. This is not just a process of asking people where they would like to go next, crunching the numbers and determining who is going where. The most important part of the process is the bit where Network Planning and the financial people get together and determine what they would like to achieve next year, what assets they have to achieve their plan and that determines the manpower requirement. Crystal is then run and that shows where people want to go, they "guess" at retirements and other losses like ill-health retirements and the program allocates moves and shows the required recruitment and training slots available. BA will always recruit direct onto LH rather than release an internal freeze as that generates additional training costs.