Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by casenmgreen | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

casenmgreen

I remember being in one of the NYC airports and needing a plug socket adapter for my laptop, for the flight.

On Alibaba, 50 cents.

On Amazon, maybe 1.5 USD.

In the airport, 35 USD. This was back in about 2015.

I did not buy it, and got by as best I could.

Such extraordinary prices materially impact the experience of traveling. To my eye, they seem shortsighted.

I also finally realised some years ago all the "duty free" shops are a giant con.

Yes, they are duty free - but they're all charging about twice the high-street price.

I never buy in airports, which can inconvenient, and it is always unpleasant to witness when I travel. If I were running an airport, I would look to make the experience of travelers as pleasant as possible, rather than actually making it unpleasant.

View on HN

> Yes, they are duty free - but they're all charging about twice the high-street price.

Same as ZERO COMMISSION EXCHANGE outfits that, yes, charge 0% commission on the receipt but have jacked up all exchange rates by 10% instead…

and what about the planned maze to reach your gate? planned so you are forced to pass in front as many shops as possible? The gate may be 50 meters away if you turn left, but the sign says you have to turn right... and it will become 200 meters and many shops

then, even worse, the fact that they "announce" your gate only 30 minutes before embarking! .... they do not want you to sit in a chair if front of your gate.. absolutely not! they want you to hang around and spend.

but, the worst: when they heat the water in the toilets so you cannot drink it! In Greece they even put a fake "not potable" sign, so you sure buy the world's higher overpriced bottle of water.

>planned maze

Is actually to maximize surface area for airplanes to park in a single terminal. Next airport trip, pull out a gps and look at where you are walking.

>announce your gate 30 minutes

The airline you are flying on only has X number of gates but X+y planes at that given time. So they will hold off on gate numbers to optimally fit you in. Lots of pilots talking to ATC telling them they don’t have gate info from their carrier yet

I understand it may appear as though they are trying to get you, but they are trying to be efficient

What I've found is that often a flight will take the same gate as it took yesterday, and failing that a nearby one. I think people like to be near their gate to feel safer about missing the flight. You mightn't know know the exact date, but since airports won't even give you the general area.

Also I don't believe your efficiency story, there are plenty of cases where it's possible to know the gate ahead of time, and plenty of reasons for airports not to want people congregating at the gate as soon as they get airside.

> there are plenty of cases where it's possible to know the gate ahead of time

exactly, sometimes even flight radar tells you the gate, but the main displays in the airport will tell you the gate number only 30 minutes before: Istanbul (IST) is my main reference here: what I do is I just go to any personnel and gently ask for the gate for my flight telling them I need to sit down and rest: they quickly check and tell me.

I have no proof, but I do believe that those 30 mins only advance notification are planned so not to have me sitting down in a comfortable chair for hours not spending money.

My local airport only has 8 gates for american airlines. They are constantly landing without a gate. Sometimes you get to file your gate early, sometimes you don't. Not having a gate doesn't prevent you from filing an IFR flight plan and getting to your destination. It just means you might sit on the tarmack because you are not flying into a hub for your airline

> Is actually to maximize surface area for airplanes to park in a single terminal. Next airport trip, pull out a gps and look at where you are walking.

yes, but I am not talking about the structure, the "concrete": I am talking about the walking way inside big open areas that makes you walk from A to B in a zigzag pattern: it is a bit like having salt and sugar in different places in a supermarket, which makes you go all around the supermarket (which is planned, no doubt, even moving those places every x months).

I am 100% sure that the super expensive rent a shop pays in an airport goes along with the guarantee that a number of X passengers will pass in front of it every day: you need to maximize the model, so what do you do?

anything goes

Yep. I hate everything about flying. It’s miserable. I plan my vacations to avoid flying, it’s just not worth the aggravation for me.

I find road trips pretty pleasant... don't plan on having to drive too far in one day, and when you aren't in a rush to get somewhere by a certain time, it's pretty relaxing just listening to music, and the general scenery for most of the driving. After a few days, most daily life stress tends to melt away.

I live in Europe and prefer the train. Less pollution, more legroom, can take a nap, read a book, etc.

You could also fly, and take a nap there... The biggest benefit to a road trip is flexibility. If you see something that catches your eye and want to look around and take some pictures, a train doesn't give you that. If you decide to stay an extra day somewhere, the effect on your budget could be significant for other forms of travel.

As for pollution, maybe if they were building more nuclear plants and high speed chargers, then electric vehicles would actually be a better option for longer distance travel. Of course not counting the environmental impact of building a bunch of new vehicles vs. the one that I've had for over 7 years.

Just show up the airport an hour earlier than needed and go grab a beer. Less stress, more relaxation

You’re still swimming in people (especially since they fired all staff after Covid and haven’t rehired but usage has returned to normal)

You still have to deal with security theatre.

You’re still treated as cattle.

You’re still at the mercy of delays, bumps, last minute gate changes.

You still have to deal with a puny amount of luggage.

You still have to pay for every little thing (lounge access to relax, drinks/food inflight, the privilege of taking checked in luggage)

You’re till siting in a tiny aluminum tube with your knees under your chin for hours on end, preferably with a kid kicking the back of your flimsy seat the whole way.

You still have to waste copious amounts of time going to and from the airport.

You still get your luggage lost/delayed/damaged and having to deal with overworked + underpaid people to try and get compensated.

I could go on. I hate the miserable experience of flying and it seems like airports + carriers are always innovating to find ways to make it even worse.

That is fine for the first flight, but the connections can quickly turn into a mess. Also, after getting there an hour early, you grab a beer, sit around, and then the flight gets delayed or cancelled. I've noticed it is stressful until the plane for my final connection going back home leaves the ground.

If you don't have to get somewhere at specific times and events, no problem, just chill and you'll get there eventually. If going to a planned meeting, or giving a talk, etc., it can be very tiring.

Oh true, I try to always fly without connections if possible, but if not it can get stressful. Depending on where you live you might always have connections, I've been lucky to live near well connected airports that have direct flights 90% of the time

It's also a perverse incentive for the airport to not improve security times. The less predictable the security experience is, the earlier people have to show up, and the more time they spend getting hungry airside.

not to mention security requirements ... the more paranoid they make people about what they can bring, the less likely they are to attempt to bring food or drink in themselves and end up resigning yourself to buying it in the terminal.

There seems to be a deliberate fog of war around travel requirements. The specifics of the rules are different everywhere (take my shoes off? belt off? laptop in my bag or out of my bag? ...). Which is slightly annoying in itself but what is really annoying is the lack of explanation of what those specific requirements are at any one airport. Which means inevitably being yelled at by security staff, feeling stupid, setting off scanners accidentally etc. It's all very unpleasant.

> The specifics of the rules are different everywhere

With lack of signage by TSA to describe the airport-specific rules. Makes TSA folks appear busy by seizing my water bottle after arriving int'l and getting caught by TSA for onward flight. And specific taxes pay for this bureaucracy.

TSA took over airport security.

what a great idea to create jobs :) :)

And you take them seriously, until you take a flight in Argentina and they tell you you can take aboard as much water you want ahhahaah

omg, you say, will be a safe flight? hahaha

of course.

Wait, did you actually find overpriced water in Greece? I ask because they have a law regulating the price of bottled water: https://greeklandscapes.com/prices-in-greece/#:~:text=BOTTLE...).

In my experience, I was able to purchase 0.50€ water at airports in Athens, Mykonos and Santorini. One trick that I saw some merchants use was to not to sell bottled water at all, or claim it had ran out, and that they only had 7€ Gatorade or whatever.

> they have a law regulating the price of bottled water: https://greeklandscapes.com/prices-in-greece/#:~:text=BOTTLE...).

oh, good to know, thanks.

I recall a crazy price for Perrier (something I would never buy myself): it was Cefalonia airport where tab water is (or at least it was 10 years ago) super fine, and in the toilet there was a fake hand made "water is not drinkable" sign (only in the main bathroom btw ahhaaha): I remember my friend needed to drink and ended up buying Perrier and not drinking from the sink as we were doing.

Do you mean “sinks” instead of “toilets”?

Toilets are what Brits call the room that America's call a bathroom. I guess at least that has the virtue of the room actually having toilets in it and not baths.

I'm a Brit (as my handle suggests) and technically I agree with your comment but if I read you can't drink "the water in the toilets" it sounds pretty literal even to me.

washroom is American but bathroom is Canadian

I've always heard and used bathroom as an American. Restroom is also used for public facilities that don't actually have bathtubs.

It might break down like pop/soda. Are you from a pop or soda state?

Yeah, it probably depends on the region.

My state is split down the middle and I'm in the soda half.

Another lifelong American checking in with "bathroom". I've lived up and down the East coast, and "bathroom" would have been normal to hear anywhere, alongside "restroom". "Washroom" would be a very distant 3rd option.

'bathroom' is extremely common in the USA.

Maybe "toilets" was meant more in the sense of "bathrooms"?

Or the comment was written by a dog

Or Duke Nukem.

The toilet can mean the bathroom, at least where I'm from.

The toilet is in the bathroom where I live. Only the local rustics say warshroom.

:) :)

yes, of course

Zero commission indeed sounds fishy, but what if there is a commission?

Inexperienced (euro-pampered) me went to a money exchange place that charged a fee because I know it costs money for them to have random icelandic kronar on hand so that's fair, then they don't need hidden fees right? I also knew the bank from name, it's a household name in my country.

Later at home I checked and I paid out of my ass for the exchange rate, never mind the fee on top...

I thought I was being clever by doing it at departure where you can compare and say no. At the destination airport, you have no choice but to exchange, everyone will need the local currency to pay for things and so I thought it's better to be prepared than potentially be paying the prices of the desperate. Yeah. No.

(A few hours of air time later, I learned that in Iceland you just pay by bank card for everything at iirc 0.3% fee and you don't need to exchange no cash.)

My personal way to do this is to check on the web what the rate without any fee is (search engine “100/however much you need eur to isk“) and then I make a mental note of that number. I go around exchange places and ask how much isk they’d give me for 100 eur all included. Makes it easier to compare them with each other without having to figure out whatever commission and fee structure they came up with, and gives me an idea of how far they are from the interbank rate.

An even better solution is to get a card like TransferWise (revolut are exploitative assholes and I don’t recommend enabling this employee exploiter) that charges very very reasonable rates so that you don’t even need to exchange or can use an atm if cash is required.

> I learned that in Iceland you just pay by bank card for everything at iirc 0.3% fee and you don't need to exchange no cash

Can you get cash out of local atm machines using your foreign card?

I travelled recently and when I got some foreign cash I noticed this. I was thinking, well if the fee is 0% you're clearly giving me a shit exchange rate and making your money there.

It seems bizarre to shuffle around the cost structure like that, but I guess it's a marketing thing that works because most people don't know any better?

A number of my friends see 0 commission and think “hey, good deal, let’s exchange here”

So yeah it works as intended. Same trick as advertising prices without taxes, tips, cleaning fees, and other mandatory fees you’ll end up paying.

You may have noticed in general that convenience costs you money. A charger which is in China and you will get in a month is indeed worth 50 cents because all that's worth to you.

A charger right this second, at the exact location (airport, past security) is obviously going to cost more.

Both because you are being charged a convenience premium, and because chances are nobody would bother setting up vending for 50 cents (just think about hiring cleared employees, supplying your store on that side of security, rental of that very limited space)

In general, I find myself much less outraged at what things cost once I became versed in market dynamics.

If you are a businessman who forgot his charger in the hotel and your flight got delayed, you are thrilled to pay $35 for it (vs not having it at all since nobody would bother selling it)

> A charger right this second, at the exact location (airport, past security) is obviously going to cost more.

I think the point they're making is that it's curious that "a charger right this second, at this exact supermarket" is nowhere near 33 usd in 2015 prices. It's specifically airports, not about waiting for 3 weeks (or even 3 hours) of shipping.

That's not the same thing at all.

a supermarket is a place you "go to" vs the airport terminal is a place where "you are."

If I am going to the supermarket, I have the luxury of time and I probably have the luxury of for example going 10 minutes further for a better deal.

When I am at the terminal, I am at the terminal. I can't go anywhere else. The product is either there or or it isn't

Ok you are describing price gouging

Depends on the country as well, some country airports with high item tax make it worth buying at the airport.

Take the vice tax for example, most Islamic countries probably at alcohol cheaper at their airports.

Same goes with countries that have items with pricing power, I always get certain gifts at Japanese airports since the price it usually cheaper with tax free comparative to the rest of the country.

US airports though... Never worth it. Overpriced af

Went to Dubai, I don't do drugs, but prices seemed not horrible.

Then I checked if I would spend my local money for some candy, but I noped right out. On principle I weren't going to pay those prices.

I'm not sure if your comment makes sense and I can't think straight, or maybe you are using 'drugs' and 'candy' in some way that I don't understand.

Ethanol is a drug. No different really from fentanyl or crack cocaine or THC. So I just referrer it as such.

Yes that's fine; but what's the "candy" in your context?

We're all confused about the candy thing.

Actual candy, like chocolate. I think price was multiple times what you would expect anywhere.

Sure they're all 'drugs', but while THC and ethanol have comparable safety profiles both are unequivocally different from and far less dangerous+addictive than fentanyl and crack cocaine for both public and individual health...

Have you considered that is more important for people to understand what you are saying than to be technically correct?

Or blueberries or aspirin? I'm confused as to where you draw the lines between those items.

> If I were running an airport, I would look to make the experience of travelers as pleasant as possible, rather than actually making it unpleasant.

You’d also need to find a revenue source to maintain the airport and pay salaries which is kind of important

I think another point is that thanks to TSA measures it will pretty much always be unpleasant, so you can make money squeezing people with layovers who don't want to, or don't have time to, go through security an extra time.

If you have a layover in a train station, e.g. with Amtrak, you can just leave the train station and go to a nearby shop if you need something.

> To my eye, they seem shortsighted.

These prices work in airports because there are little to no repeat customers, AND there is no competition to drive the prices down.

> On Alibaba, 50 cents.

> On Amazon, maybe 1.5 USD.

There's a decent chance neither of these pass the minimum safety requirements. It would be fairer to compare with a socket adapter from a supermarket.

e.g. Tesco, £4.50 for two, vs. Heathrow Airport £11 for two.

When I was younger and dumber I made the mistake of buying some halfway decent ear buds for $95. Huge ripoff but I rode those things for years until they stopped putting out sound to repent for my mistake. Never again

It's been years now since I checked, but I remember a Best Buy airport vending machine having the same price as their stores.

>It's been years now since I checked, but I remember a Best Buy airport vending machine having the same price as their stores.

It's been years now since I checked, but I remember needing (within hours) a specific ethernet card (for a box running Solaris x86 -- back in the late '90s/early noughties driver support for Solaris was quite limited) and went to a BestBuy store as they had it in stock near me.

I checked later on and found that the price in the store was 30% over MSRP.

As such, the fact that the price was the same at an airport vending machine vis-a-vis an actual store doesn't surprise me that much.

Which is why, unless I'm in a situation like I described above, I stay far, far away from BestBuy.

Obviously, this is anecdotal, so I imagine YMMV.

I should clarify. Since I was at the airport, I compared it to Best Buy's ONLINE price, not the store price. My mistake, it didn't occur to me that those might be different, but it does speak well for the vending machines!

Probably not applicable to the early 2000s, but nowadays Best Buy physical stores will price match their online prices. I went in several years ago to grab an HDMI cable that was listed for ~$10 online but was marked $20 in the store. Silly that it’s even necessary, but it was easy to price match.

>I went in several years ago to grab an HDMI cable that was listed for ~$10 online but was marked $20 in the store. Silly that it’s even necessary, but it was easy to price match.

While I get your point, that I'd even have to compare prices online and in person from the same retailer, even if they will "price match" (which is really just ripping off anyone who wouldn't think to look for a better price from them online) is slimy as hell IMHO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com