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Economy
Outrage: Philadelphia Airport Adds Hidden 3% Surcharge To Every Purchase
2024-07-01
As if you needed yet another reason NOT to fly commercial.
[View From The Wing] The Philadelphia airport made a decision this year to allow concessions operators to charge passengers more than their posted prices. They’re now allowed to add a 3% surcharge onto whatever you buy.

  • This is "to offset the employee wages and benefits" that must be paid to airport workers
  • But this is not money that goes to employees.

    You might ask, why allow vendors to charge people more than the marked prices, instead of just raising prices?

  • The airport doesn’t allow them to raise prices, because they have price caps ("Operators are only permitted to charge up to 15% more than a comparable street-side unit")
  • Vendors who already charge more than comparable stores off-airport aren’t allowed to raise prices
  • So they pretend that a surcharge isn’t a price increase

    Of course, stores off-airport have been raising prices as the country generally has experienced about 20% inflation over the past four years. Airport vendors have raised prices, too. And since the price cap is based on a percentage over ‘street pricing’ the dollar amount of the gap between outside prices and airport prices has grown, too.

    The airport wants to allow prices to rise, but chooses not to allow the percentage gap to grow. They’d rather hide the growth in an opaque ‘surcharge’.
    • Posted by:Besoeker

    #2  if this works, the Democrats will want to take this strategy nationally

    raising prices without inflation
    Posted by: Lord Garth   2024-07-01 10:11  

    #1  "Now, each vendor is required to inform customers of the surcharge… but it doesn’t have to be on hanging menu boards for instance, instead just at “point-of-sale register counter cards” and “on all printed receipts” (so you’re told about the surcharge after you’ve already been charged)."

    In Germany that would definitely be illegal.
    Posted by: European Conservative   2024-07-01 08:37  

    00:00