Monarch took a chance?
A lot of people had raised eyebrows when Monarch agreed to sub lease capacity with Aureloa & small planet.
There is a world of difference between what Easyjet, BA,LS & ZB do when they find themselves short of crew due sickness or aircraft after ramp damage (BA 734 ) and in rent in the likes of Titan Airways to keep the show on the road. What ZB have done here is put a program on sale knowing full well that they have neither the crews or the aircraft to fly that program.
It would be premature to prejudge what went wrong at BHX and the crew and their adherence to SOP may well be exonerated,but we sometimes forget that in the UK the majority of operators have very high standards of SOP compliance and that in some parts of Europe it's still the wild wild west, the pilots that have been around know this only too well!
Thankfully no one was hurt, but that could equally have been the end of R14 at LBA where Monarch might have not so easily been able brush this under the carpet!!