Hey Airborne Soon,
The pilots involved with V are already being told that the 777 will more than likely doing SYD-PER runs. It makes complete sense, and QANTAS does it already - it is far cheaper to overnight an aircraft in PER than SYD...
also, the company won't ask us to take a pay cut per se, they will just ask us to work much harder and much longer which in the real world, pretty much equates to the same thing!