Someone's paying it - looking at the annual report, they have done record revenue (106.7bn AED) - more than pre-pandemic 2018/9 and 19/20 - but using 156k departures instead of back then, 180-200; on available seat kilometers that's 284 bn ASKs this last year compared to 390 in 18/19 and 367.2 in 19/20 - yield is up 50% from pre-pandemic levels.

People are even spending on ancillaries like seats/baggage/Skywards earning - 5% of passenger revenue up from pre-pandemic 2-3%.

Which goes to show that, to paraphrase an infamous saying, the prices will continue until morale improves.