I don't think your speculations are unreasonable I just wanted to make sure that everybody remembers that there are several possible scenarios, one of which is a significant downsizing of the 777 in LA.

I was bumped from the 747 in LA and came to the 777 2 years ago when they changed LAX-NRT-BKK to the 777. I still have friends on the 747 and they're trying to decide whether to change to the 777, upgrade to captain or go to the 747 in SFO. I tell them not to just assume that IAH-HNL and LHR-IAD are sticking around because they likely won't be. If those routes go back to the bases that used to fly them and LA is left with only LHR and SYD, we'll only need the following staffing:

LHR 8 lines - 13 or 14 captains and 24 f/o's
SYD 10 lines - 16 or 17 captains 45 f/o's

That's a total of 30 captains and about 70 f/o's

Do you have any idea what the staffing is right now?

747 20 captains 51 f/o's
777 34 captains 85 f/o's

If, come April, we're down to only LAX-LHR and LAX-SYD, we will have a surplus of 24 captains and 66 f/o's. That's a huge surplus and they aren't going to just sit there and let that exist and not do something about it.

You're right that some guys will leave LAX and some guys will leave the 777/747 fleets altogether, but even with that I think it's setting up for a big ass surplus. I'm about 20 out of 34 captains and all of those 747 captains are senior to me (I was 2nd from the bottom on the 747) so I might get bumped out of LA myself.

But even if I'm wrong about there being bumps in the near future, the possibility of new vacancy bids in the LA 777 is about as likely as Jeff Smisek all of a sudden becoming a competent airline CEO. There's absolutely NO WAY it's gonna happen.