Not totally unexpected given the ceasefire which seems to have broken out elsewhere.
By the aircraft lease bit, I see Jethros has a Saab 340B (G-LGNZ) to be WFU Mar18 and I assume that this is what they mean - a replacement would have been needed to continue MME?
Bad news for the airport though. Their only hope is that Eastern actually do something instead of just going back to the J41 and high fares which sparked off this saga to begin with.