It is also possible that their data suggests that traffic to or from Germany and other destinations at that time of year is much more lucrative than CMB, so they are prepared to make CMB traffic pay the opportunity cost of a lost passenger to or from Germany and, say, Beijing or Auckland (just for example).

Anecdotally, I have often found QR to be more expensive than others around late September, and that's been for many years and for a long time pre covid, but perhaps that's my particular routings. The price differential was so large once that I even had to slum it on Virgin to Tokyo, shiver... (honestly, it was comparatively awful.both ways)