Online optimizer statistics maintenance during load

Techniques are provided for merging (a) statistics associated with data added to a table in a bulk load operation with (b) statistics associated with data that existed in the table before the bulk load operation. The statistics associated with the bulk load data are generated on-the-fly during the bulk load, and are merged with the pre-existing statistics as part of the same transaction that is used to perform the bulk load operation. Consequently, execution plans for queries that are assigned snapshot times after the commit time of the bulk load transaction will be selected based on the new statistics, while execution plans for queries that are assigned snapshot times before the commit time of the bulk load transaction will be selected based on the pre-existing statistics.