Airlines haven't been this profitable since 1978

    This is how the airlines start making money again. By cutting capacity and raising fees, they shed themselves of unprofitable customers and extracted a bit more cash out of those who could still afford to fly.

    But are things really as bright and cheery as they appear at 30,000 feet? The third quarter is always the best quarter of the year, and even though this was the best in 32 years, there are hitches on the horizon.

    Cordle estimates that there are $20 billion of costs that are going to land on the airlines in the next four years. This is just an estimate -- there may not be $4 billion in labor costs, new security regulations may not end up costing $2.7 billion, a new FAA reauthorization bill may not add $2 billion in passenger facility charges, etc. But it's likely that the cost of running an airline is about to go up, very soon.

    And when fixed costs go up, so do ticket prices. Which means that the ones who should be most worried about these new quarterly profits are people like us. The only profits we take away from a trip to see family and friends are emotional. The only justification for a business trip, in the age of Face Time, Skype and Google Video Chat, is the intangible of being in the same room.

    So if ticket prices and fees get high enough, travelers of all stripes are going to have to start asking ourselves the same question the airlines have: At what point do the costs start outweighing the benefits? For now though, pop the pre-flight Champagne.