The Baron,
I don't think that the "walk a mile" philosophy is lost on anyone.
However, you might consider how much freedom a contractor's management has to make announcements about their major client's business decisions, particularly if the client is prepared to change its mind up to, if not soon after, major announcements.
Moreover, given your need for conspiracy theories, retaining people right up to the end would probably end up costing a lot more in company funded transfers, redundancies, etc than if the folks had moved on through resignation. Were NJS so thinly populated that they could not have covered the flights with temporary transfers and overtime?
All of these situations present people with lots of "damned if you and damned if you don't" type scenarios - I suggest that the management performance will best be gauged by what happens after the announcement.
Stay Alive