The airlines are full of it. What started as a convenience charge has become a line item profit center. Before TW 800, it was common practice to sell unused return tickets (Florida newspapers had pages of them in season, in their classifieds), or give them to other family members. In the aftermath of that tragedy, in the ensuing "heightened security" checks that were instituted, they caught masses of folks using other people's tickets. Limiting this practice has been a bonanza, witness the continuing requirement to produce photo ID (trains, ships,and buses don't seem to need this). It's kind of like the way they deal with using cell phones in the air. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front page article on that, saying that no one has ever been able to show that such transmissions interfere. Meantime they have no problem with you using the $3.00 per minute onboard mobile phone system.