Latest rumour (apart from him leaving) is he had a plan amongst the trimming down of numbers to reorganise the staff centre into a 24 hour operation with a skeleton staff in order to better cater for the thousands of employees who work a 24 hour operation themselves - pilots, c/crew, maintenance, dispatch etc etc. When it suits, crew could conduct their dealings before or after a duty instead of making the trek in on a day off to sit in a queue for hours.
the fat is being trimmed from both companies
They ran out of fat to trim in flight operations years ago. They've been cutting away muscle ever since. Plenty of fat in the office or in the case of habibis not necessarily fat OR muscle... more like a growth that the body carries.