NY airport bar faces audit for charging $30 for a single pint of beer

Airport bars aren’t known for being the cheapest places in the world but one has stretched the boundaries of acceptability just a bit too far - and is now facing the consequences.

OTG, the hospitality group that oversees New York airports, is facing an audit to investigate how much it charges customers after a guest shared a menu from LaGuardia Airport listing a pint of beer costing $27.85 – plus a 10 percent so-called Covid recovery fee.

In a statement, OTG said that the price was incorrectly listed on the menu and should have read $18.15.

“This is a situation where someone simply input the wrong prices. Once we learned of it, we immediately took action to correct and began proactively auditing our entire system to ensure there were no other mistakes. OTG took this initiative on its own.”

A Port Authority established last year allows airports to charge up to 10 per cent more than ‘street prices’ to boost the wages of airport workers. Meanwhile, the “Covid-19 recovery charge” is a New York City initiative to compensate restaurants for the drop in patrons when capacity was capped. However the beer in question - Sam Adams - cost around $7 and $8 at local NYC bars.

Reacting to the error, people on Twitter found it outrageous:

“We know this market is expensive enough already, so we’re committed to everything we can do to ensure reasonable pricing for our customers,” Port Authority said in a statement.

“At our request, OTG is conducting a full audit of their pricing, and we will be working with all of our terminal operators and concession partners to review pricing across restaurants and airports to ensure customers are being treated fairly.”