From Iceland — Travellers Ripped Off At Keflavík Airport

Travellers Ripped Off At Keflavík Airport

Published September 4, 2014

Nanna Árnadóttir
Photo by
Marten Visser

A shrimp salad sandwich and a carton of Kókómjólk is 56% more expensive in the departure lounge of Keflavík airport than at the arrivals area, reports Vísir.

Kári Kárason, an Icelander at Keflavík airport seeing his two daughters off on a flight abroad, decided to investigate the price difference of these two products.

After buying the sandwich and Kókómjólk at the IGS cafeteria in the departure lounge then again at the 10/11 in the arrivals area he posted his results to Facebook

“It said “We beat city prices by 50%,” Kári’s Facebook post reads. “I think the concept of a duty free zone is a bit lost when greed shows otherwise.”

Overall the price difference was 392 ISK, or 56%. The receipts show that despite the duty free status within the departure lounge, and the added 46 ISK tax that customers at 10/11 pay, the price for the same products at the IGS cafeteria in the departure lounge still managed to be more than twice as high.

“I don’t know how 10/11 price their products,” said Gunnar Olsen, Director of IGS – who run the cafeteria in the departure lounge.”But one reason [our price is higher] is that we also rent an area for our customers to sit and eat at. Another is that the flow of customers is presumably different for us. We get a lot of customers in a short period of time, whereas 10/11 probably have customers stopping by all day. So that could explain the price difference somewhat.”

Support The Reykjavík Grapevine!
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!

Show Me More!