The real cost of flights

So I would like to know what the real cost of a flight is. I was talking to a friend of mine who is a pilot and he had just come back from work and he said he burned about $30000 worth of fuel for his round trip flight.
Then on top of fuel, maintenance, flight attendants and pilots to pay, I am guessing about $60000 for one flight.
SO the other day I was doing some flight searching to leave from Ottawa to Panama City Florida. I got a price of $8000-$10000 for four of us to fly. That would be about 1/6 the total of my guesstimated flight total. On four tickets. I just about passed out. That price is outrageous, and most of the flight price was taxes, which I find totally absurd. I checked out to leave from the states and the total for 4 tickets was $2300, which is still a little more than I want to spend and will keep an eye open for seat sales. I think the price of some tickets is a little absurd, I ain't flying around the world.