Originally Posted by
channa
No it doesn't.
Here's a domestic ticket where the taxes are 54% on top of the base fare:
Airfare: 51.16 USD
U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 9.90
U.S. Security Service Fee: 5.00
U.S. Passenger Facility Charge: 9.00
Tax: 3.84
Per Person Total: 78.90 USD
eTicket Total: 78.90 USD
The total taxes and fees amount to $27.74. While it might seems a little dramatic when compared to the airfare of $51.16, it's really not a lot of money.
And these taxes and fees, many of which are excise taxes and so remain constant regardless of the value of the fare, are the mechanism by which much of the transportation system infrastructure is funded.
Given the ever-increasing complexity and security requirements of the system that hardly seems like an unreasonable cost to help ensure safe and reliable traveling.
To put in perspective, fuel taxes are also excise taxes, and in California for example, this amounts to slightly over 50 cents a gallon. If you pump 20 gallons, you will pay $10 in tax. When fuel averages $2.50 a gallon that amounts to only 25% of the base cost of a gallon. But when fuel was $1.25 a gallon in the 90's, the tax amounted to 66% of the base cost.
The fact that the base cost on an airline ticket is low will skew the percentage values of excise taxes.