Cannot open my old .fla files

because Air is no longer Adobe product, and I need to enable Air publishing. 

But my old files were not using Air, to my knowledge.  I tried installing from Harman, but run into some issues with extracting the file.  But above all I am not even sure if I need air for anything else than opening my old .fla files. If Air is an essential part of Animate, why do I have to pay for it separately, to a different company?