Seat 2B or not 2B?

With the closing of the smaller airlines, the big ones are going to gouge you. Any air travelers might want to read this.

Seat 2B: The Big Airlines Smell Blood ... Yours
By Joe Brancatelli, Portfolio.com, and Wired.com

Four small airlines stopped flying last week. And about the only thing more dramatic than the rapid-fire demise of Aloha, ATA, Skybus and Skyway was the shoot-from-the-corporate-hip response of the big network carriers.

They quickly added a blizzard of new fees, fare increases, fuel-surcharge hikes and travel restrictions aimed at business travelers, their most loyal, most frequent and most profitable customers.

"Desperate people do desperate things," notes the oft-quoted airline watcher Terry Trippler, a travel agent and former airline employee who isn’t particularly antagonistic toward his old bosses.