MV:
I would guess EI's network planner may be looking at it this way:
"OK, I want to increase the aircraft utilisation, and I've got a gap of 3 hours between an aircraft coming back from a prime-time morning rotation and a prime-time evening rotation, so I can't send it very far [1 hr out, 30 min on the ground, 1 hr back], but I don't need an extra crew as the morning crew can do it. It'll be a once-daily lunchtime service, so this won't be anything strategic, and the yield will be pretty low as we'll miss out on the business traffic, but is there anywhere within an hour's flying time where we can nonetheless make enough money to cover the flight-variable costs, and maybe take a bit of revenue off our dear friend Michael at the same time...?"
C.