I don’t know anything specific, but I did work customer service for a major airline at one time. I can think of one routine-ish situation that could look like this.

It wasn’t uncommon that if we suspected fraud in the booking we would leave it to be canceled at the last minute so the fraudsters didn’t suspect anything until they were at the airport, where they could be caught. It could have thrown a fraud flag somehow or someone malicious flagged it similarly.