SEATTLE — You probably expect sky-high prices for products at the airport — but did you know there is a policy in place at SEA Airport to cap them? A KIRO 7 News investigation found some retailers may not be following it.
At SEA Airport, retailers can charge up to 10% more for items compared to similar items outside the airport. Retailers must submit three comparable prices to the airport before setting a price. Then, the SEA Airport Dining and Retail team reviews prices at least once a year.
The rule was established by the Port of Seattle Commission.
A KIRO 7 investigation found the rule might not always be followed.
KIRO 7 crews went inside the airport and tracked prices of 21 different items across 10 different stores.
A two-ounce bottle of Purrell Hand Sanitizer purchased at Hudson, for example, cost $4.99 at SEA. That is 151% higher than the same size bottle at Target in Tukwila.
A travel-sized pack of Tylenol with six pills costs $5.49 at Hudson, 121% higher than a pack of ten pills at Target, priced at $2.49.
A travel pack with toothpaste and a toothbrush was priced at $5.49 at Hudson. That’s 90% higher than an equivalent product at Target, priced at $2.89.
It wasn’t just Hudson.
A USB-C to USB-C cord at InMotion costs $34.99 (Mophie Brand), 75% more than the same product made by Apple at Target in Tukwila.
An eight-ounce bag of Chex Mix cost 78% more at SEA’s Urban Market, a Starbucks venture, than at a Safeway near the airport.
A bottle of Smart Water cost 87% more at Urban Market than at Safeway.
Takeout food varied. A 16-ounce hot coffee from Starbucks rang up 43% more at the airport than at a nearby location. A plain croissant was 24% more expensive.
A Big Mac at the airport costs $8.09. Depending on which McDonald’s location you compared it to nearby, it was either 9.5% or 21% more expensive at the airport. If compared to the cheaper product, the burger would be within SEA’s price cap range.
Wendy’s Large French Fries (Natural Cut) were actually 3% cheaper at the airport than at a nearby location.
Fireworks, a specialty store inside the airport, sold Hydroflask mugs for slightly cheaper than a nearby Target, too.
We reached out to the corporations behind the products with the markups for a response. Only McDonald’s responded, confirming that after review, they were inside the price cap.
“We conducted a comprehensive review to ensure prices align with the Port of Seattle’s ‘street pricing plus 10%’ standard,” wrote Bob Comiskey, local McDonald’s owner/operator. “Our current pricing is aligned with the airport’s policy.”
SEA airport officials said the extra 10% is meant to help vendors recoup extra costs that come from operating at an airport, versus an off-site location.
The official cited things like: security access for inventory, badging costs for employees, year-round operating days and longer hours, and even SEA environmental requirements, including compostable serviceware and a current pilot for finding re-usable containers, such as moving away from plastic bottles to aluminum cans.
“The cost of business is just higher to do inside an airport than it is on the street side,” said Khalia Moore, Assistant Director of SEA’s Airport Dining and Retail.
To set prices within the airport’s price cap, SEA vendors are required to submit comparable prices from outside the airport.
“There’s ambiguity over what constitutes the street price of any given good,” said Gary Leff, who runs travel industry blog View From the Wing. “It’s often the case that the street price may not be what you’re expecting to pay based on where you go and shop.”
When asked about how much flexibility vendors have in submitting comparable prices, SEA officials told us that comparable prices need to meet a “similar concept, menu item, and comparable locations to their operation.”
If the item is not deemed comparable, the vendor must go back and “find better examples,” according to the airport official.
Chains are required to find comparable prices within 25 miles of the airport. If they do not have a location within this radius, it must be the nearest location to the airport. The off-site locations cannot be located at specialty venues, like stadiums or concert halls.
We provided SEA officials with our research and airport officials looked into the data we found.
“When reviewing your provided comparisons, there are some key reasons for the variances, specifically the type of company that is doing the buying,” an airport spokesperson wrote. “Large Big-Box retailers such as Target, are direct purchasers, while airport operators like Hudson/Urban Market are in a different category of buyer and are unable to purchase direct, therefore, they make all purchases through a 3rd party distributor therefore their pricing is reflective of a different starting price based on distributor markup and then the implementation of the pricing policy.”
The spokesperson said Starbucks at SEA is not a “direct operation” and is instead “operated by an airport concessionaire, and they are required to purchase all products through Starbucks and are also subject to an increased product cost as they aren’t direct buyers with vendors.”
As for McDonald’s, the spokesperson acknowledged that off-site locations are operated as franchises, which would explain the varied prices. The airport location can submit comparable prices from nearby locations.
The airport official said they were still reviewing the information we provided with the airport’s internal team and tenants.
We requested a list of all of the comparable prices provided for all of the items sold at the airport, and we are still waiting for those records.
We also requested, and are waiting for, all of the airport pricing inspection reports, as well as violations reported, since 2022.
Leff says prices at some airports can also be driven up by a lack of competition.
“Oftentimes those vendors are actually run by the same company even when they’re different brands,” he said. “What most airports do is they will have a concessions contract with a single company, maybe the single company for a terminal or for a concourse.”
Leff said there may half a dozen places where you could buy a particular item, but that item “you’re really buying from the same company either way,” which allows the company to set a higher price.
SEA is not alone in seeing high markups.
KIRO 7 worked with seven other sister stations across the country to conduct similar experiments in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Dayton, Jacksonville, Orlando and Pittsburgh.
Every airport saw several products with double-digit markups.
Travelers at SEA told KIRO 7 they save money by packing their own snacks and bringing reusable water bottles to fill up in the terminal.
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