The only real negativity besides the workers not being able to be paid and pay bills was the fact that we lost 2 billion dollars in lost tickets. That is not really a positive at all.
But you've got to give the airlines credit for moving fast. When the feds stopped collecting the tax, they all moved immediately to raise their fares an equivalent amount.
$2 Billion? Whoa - pump the brakes....
The AP reports that the (about) 3-week shutdown cost $400 million in uncollected fees.
$532 million: Avg. month fee collection.
$6.390 Billion: Avg. yearly total for fee collection.
15.956 Billion: FY2010 BUDGET for the FAA.
They are costing us about $9.5 billion on top of what they generally collect and no one noticed that they weren’t there for almost one full month.
Personally, it is still fine by me that they stayed shut down for a while. God forbid some Federal employee has to find a new job like a regular citizen would... :)