I think this is a good time to insist that all that federal ticket-tax money get used on things like airport security, upgrading air-traffic control, and other airport or air-travel related projects, rather than piling up to add to the surplus or shrink the deficit. The mishandling of that has been very underreported.

Airlines are starting to sound the alarms and poor-mouth a lot. Some is justified, but the airlines have always worked to shift security costs to airports and the public sector as much as they can, and I see a lot of what they're doing as more of the same strategy.

What passengers must beware of is attempts to add still MORE new taxes in the name of security. My recent mileage-run tickets have been about 30% tax. It's time they spent the money that's already being paid in properly before they start saying they need more.

The federal government and state and local goverments have increasingly been using travel taxes as a cash cow for unrelated projects (how many sports stadiums have your car rents helped finance?) Now that people are set to avoid flying in droves, the cruelest irony is that by driving instead, many more will die (since driving has a much higher fatality rate per mile). Be sure to remind your congressman of that.