NC,
Your statements just prove your not on the 747, most crews are certainly not doing 70+ hours, a few are but certainly not the majority. At no time I stated I believed they they made the decision to close bases recently, Probably more like the 49ers planning which was planned 2 years prior, and that is a statement by a (sw)manager in a HKU paper available online for a dissertation on employment practises.They had to go through the legal motions one step at a time. Ironically once complete lots of staff who manage based staff won’t be needed. Cannibalism at its best. It most likely stretches back to the previous GMAs beginnings, the current one just yielding the sword.
More likely crewing is to replace the departures and reduce salaries as the monthly hours are being paired back in general even as one of the cargo peaks arrives. With the new min pay its better to be able to deal with the waves and troughs of freight. Once all the staff cuts are done and a good portion of conversions completed some new monthly hour targets may be popped in on a good friday at 6pm.
Enjoy your quarantine and bus looping.