The article has some intriguing detail: contrary to my bias, it seems to be that the routes with the most earnings are highly contested (and not the fringe ones

The article has some intriguing detail: contrary to my bias, it seems to be that the routes with the most earnings are highly contested (and not the fringe ones with an immediate monopoly). But I wonder: has this more to do with a) existing demand and b) high optimization capacity (since the routes have dozens of flights/day and include at least one of the airline‘s hubs.