Scooby the "staff shortage" situ with pre ops and csc is a genuine one and nothing to do with current pay talks, it is as sign it suggested, to many crew abusing the service by swapping and re-swapping same trips just to get something better.
A very good friend of mine was on a maternity ground placement there and said that crew are calling numerous times per day to swap, then calling next day to swap again for something better, on top of doing this with pre ops via the v swap option. Pre ops have such a back log of swaps that they can no longer take calls as well. She said it is not uncommon to see rosters now where none of the origional trips havent been swapped for something else, just think of how many crew we have and the amount of resources that are going into this service.
Many crew are beginning to get argumentitive and demanding to be taken of mia etc with excuses of commuting, etc. My friend said it wasnt uncommon for her alone to take 250 calls in an 8 hour shift. It is very unrealistic to expect it to be a 24/7 service as it is not operational like crewing and is only a nicety. Most of the people who take these calls are grounded crew on maternity so they would never be expected to do night shifts. Besides who on earth would need to call at 3am with regards to a swap?