BA back up their operations very well with standby, available, ring-in and QRS shifts.
For 'very well' read 'very expensively and ineffectively'. Or we wouldn't be short of crew now would we?
BA have had a 747 available on standby for the tsunami releif runs.
Dream on. It was at least a week before any 747 could be made available and even that required a flight from NRT to be cancelled so the aircraft could be flown direct to BKK. Spare aircraft are nothing more than a pipedream for 90% of any given month.
I've never been on a flight yet which has had problems with crewing
I've been on loads with invol downgrades to Eurotraveller because there weren't sufficicent crew according to their 'matrix' to seat them in club. Thats not including any of the scores of flights over the last 2 years that have had cabins capped and First closed due to crewing shortages. This airline is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.