Only because the politicians made it that way, though. Air traffic control and airports are financed by fuel taxes, ticket taxes and special fees collected on everything aviation related that is sold to mechanics, airplane owners, and the traveling public, even if the majority of general aviation traffic never, ever talks to a controller or uses the system, other than a public airport.
For incidence, you simply cannot legally put an AC/Delco alternator on an airplane engine, even though it's the same thing that is on a Chevy, unless it has FAA/PMA stamped on it. Get caught doing so and you'll have your airplane impounded, your mechanic will lose his license and stiff fines (more revenue for the air traffic control system) will result. Those six little letters triple the price of parts, even though it is exactly the same part. I can cite literally dozens of examples of this kind of stuff. These fees paid to the FAA to allow the use of these common parts are but a portion of what is used to finance the entire system and only the people using the system are paying for it.
If we had a modern air traffic control system, one like the FAA has been promising for nigh onto 25 years now, instead of one that dates to the mid 1960's that is being held together with bubble gum and bailing wire there would be absolutely no comparison in the efficiency and cost per seat mile of train travel versus air travel. Not even close. The secret is to get the gubmint out of it entirely. To quote Ronaldus Magnus, "Gubmint isn't the solution to the problem. Gubmint is the problem".
There are dozens of studies that have been done on this topic. Even with all the gubmint intervention flying is by far the most efficient means of travel and the costs are going down as navigation switches from the old VOR system to GPS. Over 75% of the species on the planet fly instead of building trains. Only one species builds trains and apparently only a few members of that species realize how inefficient a mode of travel it really is.
Hassle wise though it has a lot to be said for it vs. Atlanta’s airport.
One only need look as far as who is running Atlanta's airport to fully understand why it is not being run efficiently. The nepotism is rampant at Hartsfield. Ditto the TSA. Typical gubmint employee attitude. When I traveled to Israel back in the 90's several times for Nortel it was during a time when bus bombings were common. The airlines ran the security back then and they most certainly were profiling their passengers. It was safe, fast and efficient. I never waited in a security line more than 5 minutes on any of the flights I took into or out of Israel in several trips I made there. Not sure if they still do the security now now, I don't believe El Al has had any hijackings or other major security issues in over 30 years.
No problem with your comments, including the FAA upcharge on common parts. Same exists by the way between freight locomotives and amtrak passenger locomotives— gotta talk to a Westinghouse or GE electromotive division about that— so that in turn increases costs of that “different” motor. Understand your General Aviation comments. Key and central to this whole discussion is that no matter what stripe, gubmint is and has been the problem. TSA became a govt’ union cow for the Democrats who took advantage of the country’s need (where is Reagan and the ATC strike, say if TSA decides to hold the country hostage for a buck). I have a problem with using El Al as an example. You could not do what they do in say, Chicago. The country of Israel is the size of Dade County in FL and the number of El Al flights in and out not even comparable to Miami’s daily number. I would agree that the problem becomes simpler if you simply profile muslims (and the caucasian muslims too, like from Kosovo)— make the filters work and human markers. Like all politics there are still “ticks” to stop progress. So we are much in agreement. Standing in the way of good progress is someone protecting someone else’s fiefdom.