The question then becomes how do they plan to crew the fleet?? Either less aircraft come or they increase the flying. Oddly enough I heard that the average flying time was around 550 hours per year and the plan was to increase that to 750 per year.
So my guess is that they will tighten up rsv coverage and push more people into overtime (since they actually pay less per hour of OT then they do for a regular hour). Also results in lower costs for housing and other benefits. It is always cheaper to pay the overtime (up to a point).
What I find interesting is that they constantly play with the rostering system to limit guys to 14 days off per month etc and each time they do they handcuff themselves further. The little mafia in rostering have a very poor understanding of the program. EK had a chance last year to get someone in who could sort those problems and they blew it.
So, if I had to guess, upper management calculated the increase in flying per pilot and rostering will not be able to effectively (cost wise and simple coverage wise) implement it.