I'll say the same thing about the "short of crews" statement I've been saying for some time: Have a program to hire well-experienced expat FO's into a fast-track captain program.
Still plenty of 40-50 something folks here in the US that for one reason or another (911, picked the wrong airline, started late) have 10,000+ hours heavy time plus type ratings but are career FO's. They're not leaving for an FO contract but it'd be a different story if there was a quick path to a captain gig.
The fact that no one has tapped into this pool of pilots tells me they're maybe just not that hard up for people after all.....