$28 Airport Beers NO MORE — NY Finally Decides to Crack Down on Big Airport Price Gouging After $27.85 Sam Summer Goes Viral
Not all heroes wear capes — some are just trying to get drunk before a flight and tweeting about $27.85 Sam Summers.
"…after passing on the high-priced Sam Adams, Lund settled for paying $11 for a 12-ounce beer."
"It was underwhelming," he said. "It was a Heineken."
FORTUNE — You expect to pay a premium on food and drink at an airport, but one passenger tested the upper limits of that when they were charged $27.85 for a beer and nearly $11 for an order of fries at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
The prices were shocking even to the airport's overseer, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which ordered an audit of the company that runs restaurants and stores at the area’s three airports. Now, officials say, they’re tightening the airports’ “street pricing” policy, which should ensure prices on concessions are comparable to what you’d pay outside of the airport.
The insane price on the beer, a Samuel Adams Summer Ale, was initially pointed out last summer on Twitter by Cooper Lund. It wasn’t the only cold one with a scorching price. A New Belgium Fat Tire draft beer cost $20.60. And all beers saw an extra 10% added for a COVID-19 Recovery Charge.
That sound you hear is millions of brains churning and sets of eyes opening across the Empire State: wait…you mean beer is not supposed to cost $28 in an airport? Even though I'm paying for the ambiance and atmosphere and this terminal was just featured in Food and Wine because they put in a Shake Shack1?
This is not something New Yorkers will come to terms with easily, not after decades of convincing themselves and others that no, it's actually perfectly normal and worth it to pay New York prices, just part of the experience living in the greatest city in the world. Do I weep into a pillow watching HGTV on the weekends where a professional butterfly catcher and his freelance quilt knitter girlfriend tour 3 story mansions with a $15,000 budget? Only on the inside. This 800 square feet may be $4250, but the ability to step outside directly into a puddle of piss, or a soft bag of garbage if I'm really lucky, into the greatest city in the world…is priceless. Plus I split that with a roommate, who's constantly masturbating behind the bedsheet we tacked up to make half the living room a bedroom, so it's really not that bad.
The Port Authority was all too happy to let this mass delusion persist — you'll notice Mr. Lund's tweet that they're referencing is literally 1 year old. It took 1 year to call everyone in and get everyone together to "do their job," but they had no choice — the LaGuardia "Biergarten" got a liiiiittlleee too greedy and ruined it for everyone. $27.85 was apparently the breaking point, even for a high-class craft microbrew like Sam Adams. It's like Price is Right rules — $27 was cool, but they went over and lost everything.
There was no other option but to investigate, and investigate they did — immediately finding 25 travelers who had just been charged between $23 and $27 for a beer in Terminal C.
After investigating, Port Authority investigators found 25 patrons were charged “totally indefensible amounts” for beers that ranged between $23 and $27. All of the overpriced beers were sold in Terminal C, which is used by Frontier Airlines; Delta Air Lines; and the Delta Shuttle to Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
“All airport customers should rightly expect that policies which limit the pricing of food and beverages at concessions will be followed and enforced,” said Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole. “Nobody should have to fork over such an exorbitant amount for a beer… Prices at concessions will be routinely monitored to ensure they are aligned with the regional marketplace. And all airport customers and concessionaires should expect tough pro-active enforcement going forward now that these revised standards are in place.”
What wasn't mentioned was how long we can expect to see those "10% for Covid Recovery" charges on our bills. My guess is at least until the next global pandemic, but more likely, we will see companies with delayed shipping "due to Covid," reduced customer service "due to Covid," and higher prices until the day we die. You get to wear that mask for free though so it evens out.
1 That's always closed, due to Covid.