A good article on it here, but I'm really waiting for the Aviation Week discussion of the subject.

The article points out something I should have known, that the high-bypass engines of a typical modern civilian airliner present a much more difficult target for an off-the-shelf military "MANPAD." I don't know if they can be modified...one would think that if you made a missile TOO heat sensitive, it might go for something you don't really want it to. I think airliners, with their engines stuck out on pylons, can probably take a small missile hit better than a plane that has its engine stuffed up its tail.

2 million for a defense system on an airliner seems a bit steep. Much of this must be detection radar or something, since the flare ejector would be a simple mechanical system.

My idea: since the missiles are designed to go after hot military engines, put up a bunch of fake heat sources in uninhabited areas near and around airports. Maybe natural gas flares on the top of tall poles? Such might draw fire away from planes, without having to fit each plane with a defensive system. I don't know exactly how the aiming system on such a missile works, or whether a larger heat source a great distance from the intended target could "fool" such a missile. At the very least, it would provide the all-important psychological comfort that keeps passengers flying. It would cost money to burn the gas, but probably less than refitting hundreds of airplanes, and much less than it would cost to set up a more sophisticated ground-based decoy system, like something that would shoot flares into the sky if radar detected a missile launch.

Somehow, no one seems to consider low-tech solutions for these things. I remember suggesting barrage balloons to protect nuclear reactor sites from airliner impacts.