I had a friend in the hobby business explain to me how Airfix can sell such nice kits at such reasonable prices. He says they do much larger runs than many other hobby mfgs, thus amortizing molds and startup costs over a larger volume of kits. Revell and a few others do this too, but too many mfgs make much smaller runs.
That was how most of the big manufacturers used to do business. It is more the Asian companies that do the short run high cost releases. Notice how Hasegawa does a short run reissue of many of their kits with a new decal set and box for progressively higher and higher pricings. Say what you will about the quality of their kits, but their business model for the consumer stinks on our end.