The Nutts Mutts
I saw on comment on the airports spotter/nostalgia fb page about how the two regional france routes launched last week seemed like a too sensible decision for Eastern. I can only assume someone from the company read the same thing and decided that a spectacular return to form was needed!
On a more serious note, while I'm not sure an E170 is a particularly economical aircraft for the job, in light of the current situation I think I can see some sense in the route. With all the uncertainty about borders, vaccines and the like, Gibraltar is could be in a very good position to attract more British visitors than usual this summer. No border woes, and over 1/3 of their population vaccinated already. Perhaps the local govt have offered some incentives for Eastern to fly some routes from there to capitalise on this, which might make the aircraft choice seem more viable? It has been noted that Birmingham has also reappeared in the booking engine, which is also currently unserved from the rock...