Don’t see why it’s so shocking, Easyjet pinned their flag on the MAN slots very early on, and didn’t exactly make a secret of it in the press either. Looks like they didn’t want to enter a potential bidding war at Gatwick.
Hire a bulk of the ex-Monarch crew, get 6 aircraft *0(I’m sure some are due for delivery, negotiate a good rate for split ops and off you go. Don’t forget this is technically an increase of an extra 5, as 1 extra frame was planned in before Monarch went bump anyway.