Hold The Lime: Airlines Bow to Rising Costs

Yes, you can order your Coronas, your gin and tonic, even your Bloody Marys and your diet soft drinks as you relax in your seat on your next flight.

Just don’t ask for the lime to go with them.

In one of the more interesting and humorous stories to come out of the airline industry lately, some airlines have stopped serving limes as garnishments with drink due to a dwindling supply and, thusly, surging prices of the precious little green fruit.

"We temporarily pulled limes about two weeks ago, due to skyrocketing lime prices," Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Halley Knigge told the Associated Press, adding that the airline normally goes through about 900 limes a day.

United Airlines is in the same boat and has begun substituting lemons in some instances.

The culprit to the lime shortage? Drugs and drought.

A drought in California has limited the amount of limes, and the drug wars in Mexico – the largest producers of limes in the world – has inhibited production and delivery from growers in the Mexican state of Michoacan, where supply has been reduced. Flooding from heavy rains in Michoacan have also fueled the problem.

As a result, the time-tested theory of supply and demand is on full display. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average price of one lime right now is 56 cents. A week ago it was 37 cents and a year ago it was 31 cents per lime.

We can only imagine what the Rose’s Lime Juice people are going through.