The Phoenix City Council this week voted to eliminate the street-pricing rule currently enforced on food and beverage concessions at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX). That means food operators will no longer have to price food within 10 percent of what comparable items sell for on the street.
Instead, they will be allowed to set their own prices.
“I think that it is time to let them dictate the prices, knowing full well that if it got totally unreasonable this item would probably come back to council at some point,” says Mayor Thelda Williams, during the commission meeting Wednesday. “I think they are both good companies. They understand competition, they understand the market, and I think they will be fair on this.”
Low unemployment and higher labor cost projections could be the impetus for the change. Initially, SSP America and HMSHost Corp., the two companies currently operating food and beverage concessions at PHX, lobbied to alter their contracts to allow them to charge 15 percent above the street price.
City Council representatives will decide at a meeting later this month whether to make the same change for retail concessions. PHX food outlets will see price increases in February of next year.
