critical of airports hiking the fees that they charge the airlines. and you ve cited this is one of the issues affecting airlines return to profitability. but, you know, willie, some critics will say that airports, they are facing their own inflationary pressures. any sympathy at all for the tough environment in which airports are operating? zero. zero sympathy because it s not as simple as that. airports have no business, if airlines aren t flying, if the airlines aren t bringing passengers to the airport or the airport doesn t have a viable business, they don t have an alternative. and the idea that the airport can just charge anything they like because airlines will continue to operate there, demonstrates their monopolistic, quasi monopolistic attitude to business. they re not commercial entities, and that s why we object. they don t face the same challenges that we face and they ve got to realise that the best option for them is to ensure that airlines can recover.
if the airlines aren t bringing passengers to the airport or the airport doesn t have a viable business, they don t have an alternative. and the idea that the airport can just charge anything they like because airlines will continue to operate there, demonstrates their monopolistic, quasi monopolistic attitude to business. they re not commercial entities, and that s why we object. they don t face the same challenges that we face and they ve got to realise that the best option for them is to ensure that airlines can recover. the more passengers are flying and we get more passengers flying when we keep our costs under control and we can pass on the benefit to our customers airports trying to recover losses that they made in 2022 by, you know, significant increases in their prices this year and next. that s just unacceptable. that is an abuse of their monopolistic position. one of the biggest problems the industry faced this year, you know very well. well, it is now staffing shortages, ju