It does affect affordability. It's less obvious than it used to be, because it's hidden in the fee, but of course people know it's there. We have a fairly high passenger fee. It's $30 per person. It's high, and people know it's there.
There's one thing I think, though, about requirements for a certain level of service. The federal government regulates the airports and tells us how to operate them. That's okay, except that, as a small airport, sometimes we're told we have to upgrade something or that a system is not adequate and must be upgraded by a certain time. That's fine, but because we are so reliant on the grant system, it seems to me—not just with airports but with many systems where we fall under the regulation of other orders of government—if you know we must make an improvement in order to function, what I suggest is that the money should be there at the same time.
If we receive a new regulation that says lighting must be to a certain standard or water must be to a certain standard, and it's known that the only place to get the money to do that is through a federal grant, why don't they come together? Otherwise, it puts all this tension on a local service provider, the municipality, which is then trying to figure out how it can possibly get the money.
We don't write the regulations, but we have to respond to them in the time frame given, and the only place we have to go to get the financing is to other orders of government. I think one of the things that makes sense is, rather than creating the heartache and agony, attach the funding to the program. Then, when you tell us to do something, we know how and by when.