Why does a plastic-wrapped turkey sandwich cost $15 at the NYC airport?
This is a perfect example of an airport trying to have their cake and eat it too, and it's kind of diabolically clever.<p>On the one hand, airports need to make money, and with people buying cheap airline tickets, airports have found a solution by turning themselves halfway into malls, and charging businesses extremely high levels of rent, which the airport justifies because it's a captive audience that can't go anywhere else. Most of the $15 sandwich is <i>ultimately going to the airport as rent, not to the CIBO food vendor as profit.</i><p>But at the same time, there's public outcry over the absurd pricing, so the airport has to mollify lawmakers by insisting it'll come up with a policy where they won't charge more than 10% for what would be comparable in Midtown. The airport is trying to blame those greedy vendors! But <i>this is a trick</i>. Who could ever define that? Sure you can compare Starbucks with Starbucks... but you can't compare a CIBO sandwich because it <i>doesn't exist outside of airports</i>, which is <i>by design</i>. That's the whole point, that easy comparables don't exist, and when a journalist tries to use a FOIA request to get at the comparables, they're stonewalled.<p>The airport is trying to insist it's preventing jacked-up prices, when in reality it's the airport charging rent that generates those jacked-up prices in the first place, and it tries to pretend like it plays no part. Evil, but clever.