I wouldn't get to excited as the story is highly likely to be untrue as VS will still have to pay all operation costs for the duration or a very big sum of cash to exit early.
More likely the 4 Virgin Atlantic Little Red planes will be painted in Aer Lingus livery and be used on any Aer Lingus flights .
And Aer Lingus will be given the slots from Virgin Atlantic and used to fly from Heathrow to Aberdeen 3 times a day , and Heathrow to Edinburgh 6 times a day, as these slots cannot be changed to be used fly else wear.
And dephends on what Aer Lingus wants to do with the Manchester route as it might be just shut down.
A new paint job won't improve loads. You could be right but unlikely IMO as VS will stick it out to give them options in 18 months.
On the other hand if it was closing EI could of being clever and secure a few extra LHR slots for themselves once the time limit is up instead of a financial penalty.