Furloughs, Taxes and Airline Prices

The Federal Aviation Administration is in partial shutdown mode, after Congress failed to reach agreement late last week on a stopgap funding measure for the agency.

So is there any silver lining in this budgetary cloud? There might have been, reports J. Jennings Moss in Portfolio.com, but apparently it's not going to turn out that way:

For a brief moment, it seemed as though passengers might actually see an upside to the budget impasse. Without congressional authorization, the FAA is unable to collect certain taxes on tickets, about $30 on a $300 ticket. But never count out the airlines' ability to see a chance to make a few bucks. Airlines like American, JetBlue and others raised their prices over the weekend. The hike? About $30 on a $300 ticket.