Just my opinion...

It is easier for them to furlough with junior pilots spread across the fleets. Only skimming off the bottom. If the seniority on the fleets was with all junior pilots on the 757, then if they furloughed 100 or 200 757 FO's then they would have to push pilots down into the 757 seats to keep the fleet manned. Hence what happen to pax pilots before. Hiring into all seats is a fairly new occurance. Allows the company to train a lot more pilots in a shorter time, less back ups.

As someone pointed out only 30 junior pilots out of the 300 bottom are on the 777. They could fill those seats with RF2 captains and pick up the slack with less reserves or just making xpairings. Those trips will get picked up. Plenty of ..ores out there. Just saw a very junior 777 guys calendar with 120hrs on it for multiple months. So yes they can furlough. I said earlier, the threat is bigger than actually doing it. Look at all the mitigation the union is doing just to keep 4a2.. from forcing lower BLG's.