I figured LOTB ended up stretching out to three years due to market demand and the realization that they can't do tours like the 2016 leg of TBOS anymore. It was too much in one year for the band. So that caused them to space out the dates and this created the option to either go for the album tour in 2020 and an earlier release, or a third year of LOTB in the various lucrative markets in Europe and also Australia and Asia etc. where they rarely visit overall and barely ever on a non-album tour. Obviously the demand is there, so why not choose LOTB3?
The one thing I'm a little nervous about is how this affects the next album tour cycle. I'm not sure even Europe has enough demand to support an album tour in 2021, but at the same time it'd be pretty unusual for the band to start with an American tour for a new album. Then you get Bruce saying we'll probably hear solo material from him in 2021 and he talks about wanting to even tour in that capacity and it almost seems like he's anticipating having plenty of time in 2021 to pursue his interests outside of Iron Maiden.