When actor and comedian Kylie Brakeman took to X to complain about the price of Chex Mix at U.S. airports, she didn’t know what she was about to start.
Brakeman shared a list on X, formerly Twitter, of how much the cereal snack costs at three different airports on Monday, The Washington Post reported.
“Started doing science,” she wrote. “Feel free to report any data you have.”
She displayed a screenshot of prices she’d documented: $9.99 at LaGuardia, $5.99 at Indianapolis International, and $4.76 at Dallas Fort Worth International.
Brakeman travels a lot for work and says she was expecting some laughs and a “small but enthusiastic response” from the post. Instead, she got a lot more.
“We have failed as a society” one person wrote in response to the $10 Chex Mix.
People replied with examples they’d seen in recent travels. Others added examples to a shared Google spreadsheet Brakeman created.
At Boston Logan International Airport, some reported a 8.75-ounce Chex Mix bag costing $5.69. At either of Chicago’s airports, the cost was more than $12.
The same product was $4.19 at a CVS in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
“It’s crazy to me,” Brakeman says. “It’s the same bag. It’s the same chips.”
It’s no surprise airports charge more, Lawrence J. White, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said.
“It’s just well understood there’s a captive audience and that’s what retailers are going to do,” he said.
Concessionaires can set their own prices but may be limited by governing forces, including local law, the Post reported.
According to Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) research, more than 80% of airports use “street pricing plus.” This allows vendors to adjust pricing to reflect the additional costs of operating within an airport environment, a spokesperson for the council said in an email to the Post.
Different prices in the same airport is not uncommon.
White said that’s similar to businesses in local communities —the price of a bag of Chex Mix can differ from store to store. “It’s basically the retailers’ perspective on, ‘Oh the customers are willing to pay,’” he said.
But unlike your neighborhood grocery, airports have less to lose from charging exorbitant prices.
“The people passing through the airport are not going to be there tomorrow or the day after,” White said. “And if they do come back a month later, they may have forgotten their vow never to buy the Chex Mix ever again.”
In the end, White recommended bringing your own food.
“You can’t do that with liquids, but you’re not going to get any grief from TSA if you want to bring a bag of chips,” he said. “It goes through the X-ray machine just fine.”