‘Skyway robbery’: You can fly to Melbourne for less than the price of an iPhone cable at Sydney Airport

IF YOU needed any more proof that Sydney Airport is one of the worst places on earth, have a look at this absurd price tag.

IF YOU needed any more proof that Sydney Airport is one of the worst places on earth, try leaving your iPhone cable at home before a 20-hour flight.

A photo of an outrageously priced USB cable has gone viral on Reddit, with one user describing the nearly 60 per cent mark-up as “highway f***ing robbery”. Others suggested “airport robbery”, “runway robbery” or “skyway robbery” might be more accurate.

The product, a three-metre USB-to-lightning iPhone cable, retails at Sydney Airport for the low price of $62.99 — more than $23 above its recommended retail price of $39.95.

“You can fly Sydney to Melbourne, tomorrow, for cheaper than that,” pointed out one user, noting that Jetstar flights start at $49.

“So [the] store is charging around 55 per cent more than buying directly from the Gecko brand itself, who at $40 are probably sitting on a ridiculous margin anyway,” wrote another. “That’s probably about right for airport stores.”

Sydney Airport slammed for gouging customers. Picture: aptrev/reddit

One user recalled seeing travel-safe plastic containers being sold for $30, and standard Bic pens being sold for $9 to take advantage of people filling out immigration forms.

“We have this thing that people might desperately need, how should we price it? Let’s price it so it makes them want to burn the building to the ground,” another user wrote.

One added: “If you’ve gotten to this point, and don’t have a charging cable ... they know you’re going to pay stupid prices. They price this way because people are going to be desperate, and willing to pay it.”

Some pointed out that April fools’ had already finished, while one joked: “Are you sure that’s not Harvey Norman?”

Further down one person revealed their insider story. “I recently worked at an airport, making coffee,” they wrote. “I was working for a large company that own a reasonable chunk of food and beverage outlets across several Australian airports.

“We weren’t allowed to give out tap water. I was told a lot of bulls*** reasons for this. My boss said, ‘It’s against company policy because we could lose our HACCP [Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points] accreditation.’

“And then there was the person who said, ‘I just tell people we use recycled water here.’ WTF? Okay, sure, we’re using recycled water to wash our hands, dishes, milk jugs ... right.

“The real reason we couldn’t give out tap water was that the company allegedly sells one bottle of water every 45 seconds, for $4.50 a pop. Yes, I know it’s illegal to refuse tap water. I quit that job pretty quickly.”

The picture has been viewed nearly 240,000 times and attracted more than 500 comments.

Following the strong reaction, the original poster added: “Wow this blew up! For the record, I didn’t need a cable (don’t have an iPhone). I just thought it was hilarious. That perfect storm of mark-ups: consumer accessory (tick), retail store (tick), brand that trades on price = quality (tick) ‘premium’ 3m cable (tick), for iPhone (tick) at a convenience store (tick) in Sydney (tick) Airport (tick) international lounge (tick).”

Sydney Airport has been contacted for comment.

Last month, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s latest Airport Monitoring Report revealed Sydney Airport as the worst profiteer in the country, raking in a 73.1 per cent profit margin on its car park.

Sydney pocketed $133.8 million in revenue from car parking last year, according to the report, with profit increasing by 5.4 per cent in real terms to $97.8 million.

The profits from aeronautic revenue by the four airports were “substantially higher” per passenger than they were a decade ago, the consumer watchdog said.

“The ACCC estimates that over the past decade, these airports have collected $1.57 billion more in revenue from airlines than they would otherwise have collected if average prices were held constant in real terms,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.

“Despite these much higher revenues per passenger, ratings of service quality are not materially different from those seen a decade ago.”

It comes after retailer Target came under fire for appearing to charge $72 for water in the cyclone-ravaged Queensland town of Bowen. A Target spokeswoman later clarified situation.

“It was an unfortunate misunderstanding at store level,” she said. “A worker thought they were helping the community by selling the water by the slab. But we don’t sell water by the slab, only individually.”

[e-mail]

Originally published as ‘Skyway robbery’: You can fly to Melbourne for less than the price of an iPhone cable at Sydney Airport