I apologise if this is not the appropriate forum for this question, but it seemed the best one. I"m sure you've gone over this before but I'm dying to know...

When you ask someone in the airline industry, they will tell you that advanced booking fares actually "cost" them money and the full fares are to make up for the loss they suffer trying to provide us poor folks with a realistic opportunity to travel.

My theory is that they triple and quadruple the prices up to ridiculously inflated amounts on the assumption that anybody who *has* to leave in less than two weeks (or, someone who doesn't want to stay a Saturday night) must be a business flyer, and not paying for his/her own flight. Thus they feel ethically just in charging some faceless corporation an over-inflated price because they just know the CEO will sign off on it. I think this is taking advantage of people, and I find it hard to believe that a plane full to capacity of "advanced booking" fares is a loss to the company.

What is the truth?

I think it is the most bizarre kind of customer gouging, advantage-taking, we-have-no-choice-other-than-take-a-train policy I have ever heard of in the service sector. Anybody know the truth of the above? And how does the government and consumer agencies get away with this?