whatshouldiuse brings up an interesting point.
Before 9/11, recived wisdom had it that the future of the airline industry was in smaller aircraft, more airports and more short-hop air travel. Indeed, whole threads were devoted to the issue of whether Airbus or Boing had got it right in their approach to the next generation of aircraft.
It looks like there's going to have to be some serious rethinking done here. For the forseeable future, short-hop air travel has just been put very firmly into second place (or worse).