You seem to have missed this key passage in the linked article, which makes it pretty clear Ecuador is backing away. They could issue another "letter of safe passage," but won't and are saying he should face U.S. authorities. The whole passport thing seems to be a fig leaf:
"An official at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London... had also issued a letter of safe passage for Snowden. But Snowden apparently did not use it for his trip to Moscow. And it doesn’t appear that the Ecuadoran government would make a similar gesture again.
"On Sunday, Correa told the AP that an Ecuadoran official at that embassy had committed 'a serious error' by issuing the first letter without consulting officials back home. Correa said the consul would be punished, although he didn’t specify how.
"Correa’s tone seemed to have shifted after a conversation with Vice President Biden on Friday. Where Correa had earlier been defiant, he now voiced respect for U.S. legal procedures.
“'If he really could have broken North American laws, I am very respectful of other countries and their laws, and I believe that someone who breaks the law must assume his responsibilities,' Correa said, according to the AP."
It's not that simple. The airline has to agree to let him fly without a passport, and assurances from Ecuador that he'll be allowed to enter might not be enough to convince them to to that. Also, there probably aren't any direct flights from Moscow to Quito, so he'll need cooperation from some other country, and possibly another airline as well. That's conceivable, but might not work out, and Snowden probably wouldn't know that it's not working out until he was in handcuffs.
A charter flight from Russia to Ecuador costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and approaches the distance limits of private jets. I doubt they even do this for themselves.
"An official at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London... had also issued a letter of safe passage for Snowden. But Snowden apparently did not use it for his trip to Moscow. And it doesn’t appear that the Ecuadoran government would make a similar gesture again.
"On Sunday, Correa told the AP that an Ecuadoran official at that embassy had committed 'a serious error' by issuing the first letter without consulting officials back home. Correa said the consul would be punished, although he didn’t specify how.
"Correa’s tone seemed to have shifted after a conversation with Vice President Biden on Friday. Where Correa had earlier been defiant, he now voiced respect for U.S. legal procedures.
“'If he really could have broken North American laws, I am very respectful of other countries and their laws, and I believe that someone who breaks the law must assume his responsibilities,' Correa said, according to the AP."