Eventually, we'll have to either decide to get serious about not burning fossils, or not.
If we do become serious about it, there's no reason internal flights that can easily be replaced by slower rail today, shouldn't be pay as high taxes for fuel, as the cars do.
Cars can also be more convenient than transit, and we tax them for it.
There's a story I heard about the oil industry in not-europe. Flaring off natural gas because it wasn't economically feasible to capture it and store it for energy is just "how things were". Ever idiot can see it's a waste, but it takes a special government to see how to fix that waste.
Talk to the engineers to figure out how much it would cost to capture that natgas. Set the fine for flaring natural gas to be that, + $10,000 or so per day.
Voila! Suddenly it's economical to capture that natgas.
If we do become serious about it, there's no reason internal flights that can easily be replaced by slower rail today, shouldn't be pay as high taxes for fuel, as the cars do.
Cars can also be more convenient than transit, and we tax them for it.