Good point floaty!
It is more than normal that BA/VS/BD or any other UK based airline hire french/spanish/italian crew as they (we, I'm dutch...) don't need a visa to work in the UK.
We call that the European Union...
Concerning Virgin they have organised a kind of work swop:
Aussie from VBlue working for VA and VA crew working for
VB.
Isn't that great and rewarding?