What are airports for?

I'm due to take my wife to Luton Airport soon. It couldn't be Birmingham because the route to Berlin doesn't exist. However, Luton it is.

Do you think airports are for providing services to airlines? Or are they in the retail business? Or is it car parking?

I'm beginnining to think it all starts with car parking and ends with the airlines. If you look at the Luton site, there is something very telling about all this. In the Short Term parking area you could (I can't imagine anyone so foolish) pay over £500! Long Term parking is £80 a week. OK, you can book online and get discounts, but the parking fees must be raking in tens of thousands a day!

I realise that parking needs to be paid for, but this scale of charging is higher than renting an average one-bedroomed house. It seems crazy that we are paying more to park the car than fly in the plane!