Pretty misleading title. Yes, commercial and private planes have been shot down in the past. Yes, American commercial planes still fly through airspace where there is fighting on the ground. No, most of these places do not have access to weapons that can strike something flying at 30,000 feet or more. Israel's flights were cancelled because a missile hit a house just a mile away from the airport, where planes taking off and landing are particularly vulnerable. That doesn't mean that we should stop flying everywhere someone has a stinger missile launcher and is crazy enough to point it at Delta flights. Unless the people waging war have something on par with the BUK rocket that shot down Malaysian Air Flight 17 you've got little to worry about when you're 30,000 feet in the air. And only actual states have those. No one needs to be afraid to fly over Afghanistan.