Crew shortages is just one of the many reasons that their house of cards is slowly toppling. They reduce block times to cram more into a day and then reduce CI to make the flight slightly slower. The turnrounds are as short as they can get them so no room there. Add onto that the CTOT restrictions caused by capacity restrictions in certain sectors (playing by the rules not industrial action) and then there is just not enough give in the system to accommodate even slight delays. As a final item (for now) they have alienated the workforce by renaging (sp) on and generally ignoring agreements so where is the incentive for the crews to push themselves beyong the limit. A lot of people are running on empty now and we have not even hit peak summer and with no-one to replace them we have are just going full circle.
If all the elements of their plan (!) line up then the system works but if one or two are out then something has to give and it ends up with the passenger being inconvenienced. This is not what any of us wants but the blinkered attitude of the reduce costs above all else brigade in Luton has brought us to this point and they seem clueless as to how to get us out of this mess.