If we’re being honest, half the appeal of airport lounges is the cachet of stepping into an “exclusive” area away from the terminal. In this month’s hot take, we catch up with a travel company CEO, who makes the case for skipping the airport lounge entirely.
Hot Takes is a new monthly series inviting experts to share their hottest takes about travel, hospitality, and more. Have a hot take you’d like to share with us? Send your takes to [email protected] for a chance to have your take featured in a future story.
On a recent journey from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), my home airport, I could see the big banner sitting in front of the United Club from far down the concourse. I knew what it said: “We’re temporarily not accepting day passes.” I wasn’t using a day pass, so what the sign meant for me was: “It’s crowded AF in here today.”
Sure enough, it was. After some searching, I was able to find an empty seat at a counter where I could plug in my laptop. I ignored the food area, which had a line seven passengers deep for the coffee machine.
During my connection in Houston (IAH), it was even worse. The same “no day passes” banner was parked out front, but at this airport, a hub for United, there were no available seats at all. Zero. Just a line at the buffet held up by a staffer fussing with the giant pan of powdered scrambled eggs.
Continue Reading Article After Our Video
Recommended Fodor’s Video
Scramble them in the back! We kind of have somewhere to be! I fumed inwardly.
I recently caught up with my friend Brett Snyder, owner of the travel assistance service Cranky Concierge, and author of the popular airline industry blog Cranky Flier. Like me, Brett is a self-professed “airline dork” (we both collected airline timetables back when they were printed) and a veteran of the industry, so we’ve both spent a bit of time “behind the curtain” and understand why airlines do a bit of what they do.
When it comes to lounges, however, Snyder isn’t sold on them.
As a fellow writer, Snyder has acquired the habit of qualifying his opinions with the understanding that his experience isn’t universal: “It definitely depends on the type of flying you’re doing. I live in Southern California and can generally fly nonstop to most places I need to go—I don’t make a lot of connections. So, for me, using the lounge means having to get to the airport early.”
“True,” I said. “It’s a bit self-fulfilling—you want the airport experience to be better, but you don’t need to spend more time at the airport because of it—the lounges aren’t that good.”
That’s not to say he never uses lounges. He visited a lounge last summer on a trip to France, but he noticed he didn’t get much more than he would have found in the terminal—a seat by the window and an outlet. “Sure, there was free food,” he said, “But I wasn’t hungry, and I didn’t care. And if needed, I could have easily picked up something I wanted in the terminal.”
That’s a sticking point for me, too. I always say lounges are filled with people who act like they’ve never seen a buffet. Some, like the worker in Houston, seem lost on the notion that people in airports have limited time, while others seem to defy practicality. I’ve seen tongs set out for bean salad at a Delta Sky Club in Dallas, as well as large spoons for bacon and breakfast sausage at a Plaza Premium lounge in Phoenix.
But what’s the point of all this? Why do airlines operate these lounges anyway? Aren’t airport concessions enough?
The Business of Lounges
No, the fancy free-food-rooms at airports around the world (I even found a Priority Pass lounge in the tiny two-gate terminal in Kasane, Botswana) aren’t just there for fun. In Europe, lounges have long been considered an extension of the business class product. Business class passengers and elite frequent flyers have access to the lounges as an incentive for brand loyalty or to purchase a higher business class fare, which comes with less space onboard the aircraft than in the U.S. In Europe, the lounges are often not operated directly by the airline (except at larger hubs) but by the airport or a third-party provider, who charges the airline for each passenger who visits.
In the U.S., the lounges have traditionally been airline-operated and open to passengers who pay an annual membership fee, regardless of what class they’re traveling in (pre-9/11, when you didn’t need a boarding pass to get through airport security, you could even maintain a lounge membership just to meet with clients passing through the airport).
This creates some confusion among passengers on both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve seen plenty of Europeans on domestic flights in the U.S. try to enter lounges thinking their first-class ticket or frequent flier status is sufficient, while in Europe, Air France puts up signs at the entry to their lounges in Paris reminding passengers their Delta Air Lines credit cards do not give them access like they do to Delta lounges in the U.S.
To be fair, access policies can be confusing, and airlines have intentionally made them so to alleviate lounge crowding by exploiting loopholes in their own agreements. Airlines are free to alter lounge access requirements for their own lounges and programs, but their alliance partners are granted access through reciprocal agreements.
Delta’s top elite SkyMiles members are also at the SkyTeam Elite Plus tier, which gives them access to a lounge on an international itinerary. But Delta says they have to be ticketed in First, Premium Plus, or DeltaOne to qualify. Delta can’t put those kinds of restrictions on SkyTeam partner airlines, so they actually turn away their own elite members at many SkyClubs when elites of their partner airlines are given access on the exact same ticket type. Say you’re flying from Seattle/Tacoma to Seoul in economy class. A Delta Diamond Medallion member wouldn’t be entitled to access the Delta Sky Club with that ticket, but an Air France/KLM Flying Blue Gold member would (Delta also gets cash money from Air France/KLM for that visit instead of applying a “funny money” expense to an internal account for their own fliers).
Why Are the Lounges So Crowded?
Lounges also tend to resemble nightclubs, the way they’ve gotten so popular. I’ve seen literal velvet ropes outside many of them—some even working multiple rope lines separating VIPs like international business class travelers and top-tier elite fliers from the hoi-polloi of plain old lounge members or less-elite frequent fliers. I, myself, have stood in line for half an hour to get into Delta SkyClub at New York-JFK (granted, it was on a three-hour layover, and I really wanted that shower after a long transatlantic flight).
The short answer is they’re a victim of their own success. Airlines and credit card companies dangle lounge access as an attractive carrot for too many people, so they get crowded. American, United, and Delta each market a credit card that comes with lounge membership, often at annual fees that are either lower than the regular annual lounge membership or with a number of other value-adds.
With so many people eligible to use the lounges, airlines and card issuers (American Express and Capital One operate their own lounges in the U.S.) have had to find ways to either limit the pool of eligible travelers by reducing the number of cardholders by raising annual fees or reducing eligibility for lounges. Delta no longer sells SkyClub memberships to non-elite members. Alaska Airlines once allowed passengers on first class tickets into the lounge; now, that benefit is only for the airline’s longest flights.
What Are the Lounges Good For?
There are lounges in the world Snyder appreciates. “The lounges that I have found most useful are the arrival lounges.” These are a small subsection of lounges that some airlines operate for arriving passengers instead of departing ones.
“With the arrival lounge, the whole goal is ‘I just flew overnight, I am exhausted–it’s an easy place to put yourself back together, take a shower, and reset the clock. But there aren’t enough of those in the world,” he says.
He’s right about that. Arrivals lounges are available at only a few airports with significant inbound overnight flights, including London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Zurich, Frankfurt, Sydney, Tokyo Haneda, and Doha. To clarify, those are lounges for passengers arriving from local destinations. Passengers making connections after overnight flights fare better, where they can use the airside lounges before their next flight. I myself swear by the Air France lounges in Paris for their lovely shower suites—just the ticket after a long overnight flight.
Snyder also concedes that the lounges are generally more valuable for a connecting flight, but only if they’re not crowded. “On connecting flights, it’s a different story because you don’t really have options [as far as what time you arrive at the terminal before your next flight]. You have to decide how you want to spend that time. If the lounges were truly a sanctuary where you could relax, that’s great, but that hasn’t been my experience.”
“Depending on the airline and the time of day, it usually starts with a line, and then when you do get in, it tends to be chaotic. I actually find that if I’m really looking for something that’s quieter and more peaceful, I’m better off finding a corner of the concourse with no flights, and it’s a more pleasant experience.”
On super long layovers, he adds, he’d much rather leave the airport entirely and go into the city, and I’ve done that several times myself.
One of my own observations is that half the fun of the lounge is the cachet, aside from waiting in the line, stepping past someone arguing with the agent at the desk over whether or not they’re entitled to enter, and hopefully finding a seat. When I do find a seat, I invariably overhear someone having a phone conversation, where they always manage to work where they are into the conversation. And 95% of the time, they’re not “at the airport” or “about to board a flight,” they’re always telling the person on the other end of the line that they’re in the lounge.
There’s another, more niche benefit to the lounges: many of them have their own dedicated customer service desks. Most U.S. airlines operating their own lounges domestically do this (except Alaska, where non-union lounge hosts are contractually prohibited from most tasks that unionized customer service agents can do). This really comes in handy when flights are delayed or canceled—in my experience, the agents working in the lounges are experienced and have a bit more access and authority than the ones working on the concourse. This is uncommon outside the United States, where airline lounges are less frequently airline-owned or operated.
Back in Houston, the eggs were finally scrambled to the worker’s satisfaction, but there still wasn’t anywhere to sit, so I managed to find an ebb in the foot traffic near the orange juice dispenser so I could eat my breakfast taco quickly. After that, I decided I’d had enough and stepped back out into the concourse for respite from the lounge.
My triumph was short-lived after I ducked into the men’s room to find someone had thoughtfully left a half-eaten Lunchables atop the urinal. Maybe Brett’s right. Perhaps the best way to spend time in airports isn’t fussing about with a lounge, but to get in and out as quickly as possible: “When I’m in an airport, I’m not looking for gourmet—I’m looking to get where I’m trying to go.
