I suspect the airlines use an algorithm to maximize the prices the tickets sell for. This will have absolutely nothing to do with how much it actually costs the

I suspect the airlines use an algorithm to maximize the prices the tickets sell for. This will have absolutely nothing to do with how much it actually costs the airline to provide the service. It will instead be based on some crazy mix of supply, demand, competitors prices, time until flight (to allow better prediction) etc. Some routes will lose money, some will be cash-cows. The algorithm balances it all out for a net profit. Enter an anti-algorithm that starts mucking with all of the carefully balanced numbers to do an optimization of its own and you end up with very unhappy airlines.