Everyday nearly two million people use commercial air transportation in the United States. To fly, each passenger must perform a unique type of emotion management that may impact their entire travel experience. Using ethnographic observation and interviews, this project explores how airport structures-security queues in particular-serve to cue emotional responses for passengers and shape interactions with others. Specifically highlighted are the reflexive nature of emotions, how emotions "travel" among people and through contexts to influence communication, and the consequences of emotion management for individuals and organizations. In examining compulsory interactions between passengers and employees, the study forwards a new emotion management construct specific to customers-" emotional taxes" or the emotional performances customers must "pay" to negotiate a compulsory interaction.
