There's more than simple economics at work here - the OWE rules have plenty of caveats that could easily be applied to keep the likes of me from buying a ticket in Egypt. For instance, there's a paragraph near the end that says you have to pay for your ticket in local currency, else you pay the higher rate for the currency you use. Check it out. Despite my ticket saying "EGP" I clearly paid with a U.S. credit card, and BA could easily have said "no, that's not allowed."

One could guess that due to the distribution of proceeds from the sale/use of an OWE, BA found it in their interest to maintain that price structure as long as they did. CAI staff probably did too, in spite of people here feeling sorry for them having to write all those tickets (did someone say two a day?) I'd be surprised if any remote station like CAI doesn't get mucho brownie points for generating revenue and keeping the bus to LHR filled, and two extra bottoms every day, often in a premium cabin, wouldn't hurt their reputation at all.

What matter that it's an American or Egyptian butt in that seat? BA gets the revenue, and however it's split up, chances are they get to keep it in their account for up to twelve months before divvying it up.

Chances are it was really AA that instigated the price increase, since they'd get a little of that business back, perhaps confirmed by their anxiousness to hurry the increase.