It's a routing necessary to make an oversized aircraft type for the route viable ... Eastern were in there like vultures as soon as the ticket seller went tits up, they'd have been pretty sure then that their aircraft were oversized for the routes that they were poaching but who cares, it's only the people that pay their salaries that they are p1ssing off!
Now if only there were a UK operator of such a type as the Do228 ready to take up some of these routes that such amateurs as Eastern can't handle!