one of Ed's points from his letter.....
"The number of ULR flight segments will increase to 7 by the end of this financial year versus 1 last year"
Last year wasn't the 340 doing JFK x 2 as well as a SYD and MEL.
At this point it was very easy to manage the rosters...most of the pilots were at 900 hrs and it was fairly easy to get decent rosters so that most people were happy...albeit a bit tired.
So not really a very valid reason.