I still disagree that crew costs are high because of the nature of the flying and the product. I wonder how Qantas' UK costs compare to BA, or Virgins when factored per head. The reality is that given a set number of crew, BAs costs are still way above the others. It's not just about the 747 either. Crew costs are higher on 4 and 3 class 777s and 3 class 767s.
The cabin complexity argument also falls down when you consider that we always leave London with a full complement of crew regardless of the booked loads. If you flew over the Christmas period you'd have seen flights with barely anyone on them and low single figures in the premium cabins. Does that require a full 15 crew? When you've only two people in first do we we need 3 crew members to serve them, or could we leave London with 14 crew and crew First with 2? I don't have an issue with using extra crew on EF services with high Club loads, you can only do so much given the flight time, but we wouldn't routinely but 6 crew on an A319 from Frankfurt regardless of load so why put 15 on a jumbo regardless of load?