Originally Posted by
pitz
The government collects crazy amounts from airport rents and other fees on air tickets -- they should be paying the costs of these mandated air marshalls.
Each passenger specifically pays a security fee, and it can't be for the 30 seconds it takes CABSA to x-ray your carry-on. For international travel, it's $26 and I suspect some of that ends up in the government's general account. I've never seen a general accounting of how the money is used - not a line item breakdown, to be sure, but even a statement on how much of the total actually goes to passenger security.