A low priced entrant upsets Orlando airport incumbents

Eight generations of Vanderbilt MBA students have heard the story of the Orlando airport gas stations who refuse to post prices.  When travelers fill up their gas tanks before they return their rental cars they are outraged at prices that are $2/gallon higher than in the rest of Orlando.

It has taken only eight years, but entry is providing some competition to the two incumbents:

Thursday morning, Wawa opened its doors — and its gas pumps — just a block from the two gas stations closest to Orlando International Airport that charge much higher than market prices: $5.99 a gallon. Those prices leave a bad taste in the mouths of unsuspecting vacationers in a hurry to top off their rental cars before flying home.

Wawa, the convenience store with a cultlike following, will feature a bright electronic sign advertising its normal market-rate gasoline. To promote its opening, Wawa was charging $2.99 a gallon this morning, well below the Orlando average of $3.45 per gallon of regular.

That's good news to consumers stuck paying the inflated rates.

"This is ridiculous," businessman Joseph Kutka said this week after paying $70.40 to gas up his rental at Suncoast Energys before catching a flight back to Wisconsin. Like most customers at Suncoast and across the street at Sun Gas, Kutka didn't notice the price until the fuel was flowing. "They're scamming their customers. I would have stopped somewhere else if I'd known."

After years of complaints, will Wawa and the free market force prices lower? It's possible.

"At this point, we haven't made a decision," Sun Gas co-owner Larry Nieves said Wednesday. "We haven't decided what we're going to do."

I hope Mr. Nieves was using the royal "We" and not referring to potential joint decision making with his Suncoast rival.  Agreeing to not compete [by refusing to advertise] can be a violation of the antitrust laws.