'Fairness' can be an important quality for legislators to consider when they are passing public policies. But it is a subjective standard. And it has no place among judges on a court - whose duty is to dispassionately judge a law's constitutionality.
A good portion of the airport is on ceded lands, and lease money was paid for that. So the state's collecting lease money because all of a sudden 'worthless' land now has an airport on it.