Interesting you mention Lisbon. That route is renowned for attracting the most utterly appalling old trouts that exist in the BA eurofleet. They've been around the world (block) enough times and are sitting it out on plum European routes, waiting for retirement. They 'bid' for Lisbon because if you time it right you can have 3 days away from London with 5 hours duty a trip...I would imagine MXP and FCO (amongst others) are the same.

The sad irony is that these trouts are sitting on £60k+ a year in sight of a great pension, protected by BASSA, whilst the junior CC on £20k who bust a gut to serve (as in your post) get treated like dirt.