”How can this be legal?”
Because the FTLs were, in my opinion, not made for on demand charters, with changes occuring on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. They were made for flights and schedules that are planned weeks in advance, with minimal changes as the schedule roles on.
The issue with positioning the day before, from a sales dept point of view, is that its better to leave the aircraft where it is to see if you can pick up another charter which will pay for the positioning flight, in this case to Rome. As someone already mentioned, its all about optimising aircraft utilisation.
Not sure what “type” of operation we are talking about here, but if its only about the hotel costs when talking about a €200-250K charter, then I would just make a call to the relevant departments in our company and inform them that we have decided to position the day before in order to get proper rest before the flight. I always work with the charter department, and I see it as my job to deliver on their sales, but there are times where I will dictate how that needs to happen in order to protect myself and the crew. I think thats only fair and more often than not we will agree on a solution without any big discussions.
CP
Edit: In this case I would also argue that parking is way cheaper in Rome than in Nice and use this to my advantage when “selling” my plan to the company.