Flygatwick
I think that your last paragraph in particular is spot on and you're comments are absolutely true.
Regarding "water salutes", this doesn't seem to happen as often as it used to with inaugural flights. Plus it was also still fairly dark when the inaugural Air Peace flight arrived at LGW. You can just imagine the airlines reaction to this not happening and their unsubstantiated reasons behind it.
Regardless of all that I'm still under the opinion that Air Peace won't be at LGW in five years time or any London airport for that matter.