Can I connect a laser printer via C-usb port using the iPad Air. ?

No.

iPads are NOT full laptiops where lots of direct wired connections to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray player/writers, some old school spinning platter hard drives, printers or hardware scanners and anythng else that can be plugged into a laptop/desktop computer.

iPads and iPadOS currently ONLY have rudimentary wired or hard connection support for some external storage drives, keyboards and a myriad of adapters for some iOS/iPadOS spedific external peripheral devices, like for digital cameras and camera card readers and for things like externally powered USB-C hubs, audio through Lightnng and USB-C connections, a for other external devices that are specifically compatible with iOS/iPadOS.

There are STILL many things iPads/iPadOS cannot do that a full laptop/desktop computer can.

Sorry & Best of Luck to You!

iPad does not natively support direct wired connection to a printer.

Apple AirPrint is a driverless connection protocol - that requires a compatible Printer to be wirelessly connected to your WiFi network. A high proportion of modern printers intended for Home, SoHo and Business environments now support AirPrint. Check your printer model against this list:

About AirPrint - Apple Support

If your printer is not compatible with AirPrint, there are alternatives…

Some printer manufacturers have a suitable companion App that provides Print capabilities for mobile devices, often using a web-based print service. Others can print directly if the App supports other network printing protocols. Take a look at HP Smart in the App Store; it may help with your problem:

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hp-smart/id469284907

You might also consider connecting a non-AirPrint printer to a PC or Mac computer - and install a “helper application” that allows the computer to emulate AirPrint capabilities; one such option is Readdle Printer Pro, for which suitable software for PC is available. A link to the PC software is included from this page:

https://readdle.com/printerpro

A further alternative is to consider installing a dedicated Print Server Appliance on your network - and connect your printer to this. One example is the Lantronix xPrintServer.

The remaining solution is to simply replace your printer with one that is AirPrint capable.