Isn't it all quite fascinating?
Not long ago there was a huge hue and cry going on pprune that Ryanair were fiddliing the books so that their pilots were having to fly more than 900 hours in a calendar year, but by some Irish fiddle (excuse pun) "everything got put right by magic on April 1st".
Suddenly, some of them are flying less than the poor chaps in BA!
I have seen and done all of this before.
For example, when I worked in the US of A in the 1980s for a Part 121 operator, I got paid by the hour and had a 50-hour guaranteed month. Anything above that was good news. In fact, a 100 hour month was wonderful. (A 120 hour month was possible under FAA regulations).
However, being a practical soul, I already figured that I was not likely to do 100 hours per month every month of the year, so I did some sensible accountancy and put some of the good months towards what were likely to be the bad months.
Not only that; the company that I worked for in the US of A, did not have a pension scheme or anything else for that matter, so I put a proportion of what I earned in the US of A into a UK pension fund and it has rewarded me handsomly.
It is called the principle of the 6 Ps.
"Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance".