Surely they can't be thinking about putting a brand new SO in the seat alone for hours at a time! Flown with plenty that I won't even leave alone for 5 minutes! So it's likely to require at least an FO alone in the seat. Which begs the question, if single pilot cruise relief requires an FO at bare minimum, what will we need SO's for?
But if we don't have SO's, how are they gonna recruit crew? Can't see too many suitably experienced people moving to HK for POS18 (or whatever worse package they are dreaming up right now).