You don't need overtime to "persuade" crew to complete the job. Crew will complete the job unless they are too fatigued to do so. No professional pilot would disrupt hundreds of pax unnecessarily.
I'd beg to differ. Having spent the last 8 years on the 744 & 380 (and still in the bottom 20%), I can assure you that the overtime is a significant incentive to extend beyond 14 hours and even more so beyond 16 or more. I can think of at least 5 occasions when the overtime was seen as
the only reason to extend by at least 2 members of the crew. For me, its it's the "dollars make fatigue go away" thinking that is most worrying.
Yes, most crew will go the extra mile to save the passengers the inconvenience, but with no financial incentive, it only takes one crewmember to reject that option and in most cases that will be it for the whole crew.
Oh....and if I get 8 hours in the bunk, let alone sleep 8 hours, I shouldn't have been there in the first place. There are times, eastbound from Europe where I wish I could have 8 hours in the bunk to compensate for the time zone affected lack of consistent sleep I've had in the last 7 days. Should I get additional pay for that? I do and I'll leave it up to others to determine the merits of that portion of the award. Suffice to say, should it be removed, it will be those even more junior who find themselves with 3 DXB-LHR's a bid period.