Beags
The "excess" of ME pilots is against the manning requirement from PTC, which has no correllation to tasking. I think I am right in saying that or the last few years, tasking has been at about 150%.
The other factor in this is the number of crews deployed away, versus in-theatre tasking. In our current deployment, we are overcrewed, so that guys spend unnecessary time away from their other halves.
Getting crews back from theatre is far harder than blood out of a stone, because we might need them . . . . . . . . .
Just as an example, on average 500 hrs a year(mostly 1 hr sectors) and 4-5 dets a year(3-5weeks). Obviously training has been reduced accordingly to fit in extra IDT/IRT/GDT/WHT.