Research revealed that passengers thought that the fare was higher than it actually was, so the airline raised ticket prices to match these perceptions. It is reported that British Airways then ran Concorde at a profit.
"Laws" that can be broken hardly seem to qualify as "laws of physics".
An increase in maintenance costs due to the planes being very old and out of production also doesn't qualify:
British Airways and Air France were able to operate Concorde at a profit, in spite of very high maintenance costs, because the aircraft was able to sustain a high ticket price.
Its estimated operating costs were $3,800 per block hour in 1972, compared to actual 1971 operating costs of $1,835 for a 707 and $3,500 for a 747; for a 3,050 nmi London–New York sector, a 707 cost $13,750 or 3.04c per seat/nmi, a 747 $26,200 or 2.4c per seat/nmi and the Concorde $14,250 or 4.5c per seat/nmi.
So 50% more expensive per seat/mile than a 707 and twice as expensive as a 747.
If it were truly profitable it would still be in operation. The evidence doesn't even need to be explained, unless you believe the airline industry willingly abandoned a profitable product.
There's been a lot of speculation as to why it was ultimately cancelled and whether it was or wasn't profitable. BA certainly claimed it was profitable at the time of withdrawal which was blamed on the airworthiness certificate being withdrawn by Airbus (who bought Aerospatiale) who refused to supply more spare parts. The speculation is more that it wasn't as profitable for BA as first class on a B747-400. It may well not have been profitable for Air France by the end though.
My understanding is Airbus hadn't really wanted to keep dealing with it for a while, and once Air France pulled out Airbus took that as a reason to step away. I believe it had been losing money for Air France, and the cost to retrofit aircraft to avoid another incident inevitably worsened that.
