Waterhorse

Negotiating is just lazy speak for begging😁 What we mean is that we will tell ATC that we are ready to move and if someone else cannot make their time, we might slip into that spot. There�s no real horse trading. When BMI was still in existence, BA pilots used to joke that the most frequently heard comment on LHR Ground Frequency, was �after the BMI� and that the second most common phrase was �after the second BMI�. When we merged our, now, colleagues said they had the same joke only with �after the BA� etc. It�s a matter of perception, we go when it�s our turn and that turn is determined fairly - that is unless we are at CDG or FRA, of course🤣

Heathrow Tower

I can honestly say there's been no sign of any preferential treatment for any airlines at LHR. We really don't think of all the different coloured aircraft as competitors, just as those to whom we are provising a service.

The only thing I could think might appear a little bit preferential, is that sometimes when there's an opportunity for an aircraft to depart/taxi/pushback quickly via a complicated radio instruction, then chances are we'll choose a native English speaker (or maybe KLM, Lufthansa, SAS) just to reduce the possibility of the instruction not being understood on first transmission.

In terms of Gatwick, I would be guessing, but you might have a CTOT (BA from Gatwick are currently mainly to Spain/Med? I don't know), or your route might be subject to a temporarily-imposed greater Minimum Departure Interval, whereas some of the others you're seeing overtake might be domestic EZY flights which don't have such restrictions? Also, there could be situations where, depending on the taxiways used, you might have been able to get to the 'front' of the queue from where BA's stands are, by overtaking a few EZYs, but in terms of 'time order' you are behind them, so ATC is departing those first? We see it sometimes with 09R departures from T4...There may be 10 or so at the holding points to the north of the runway by T5, but the sole T4 departure trundles out and sits right by the threshold, even though it's no.11 for departure. After a few minutes it's still only no.8 and starts asking when it's going to be permitted to depart, because the fact it 'overtook' 10 others doesn't register from a human factors point of view.