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Airport lounge

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An airport lounge is a lounge owned by a particular airline (or jointly operated by several carriers). Many offer private meeting rooms, phone, fax and internet access and other business services, along with provisions to enhance comfort such as complimentary drinks and snacks. At lounges, passengers will also find more comfortable seating, quieter environments and better access to customer service representatives than in the airport terminal.

Contents

Access to lounges

Access to airport lounges may be obtained in several ways. The most common is to become either an annual or a lifetime member. Membership fees are sometimes discounted for elite members of an airline's frequent flyer program, and may often be paid using miles. Travellers flying internationally in first class or business class are often offered complimentary access on their days of travel.

Lounge access can also be attained with an airline status card. The top levels often offer access to any of an airline's lounges or partner airlines' lounges, when travelling in any class of travel on any of the partner airlines (usually it is required for the cardholder to be booked on one of the carrier's flights within the next 24 hours).

Generic lounges provided by an airport operator also exist. A fee is paid, which ranges from a daily fee to yearly fees or lifetime memberships. There are also programs that offer access to multiple airline clubs like one for holders of the American Express Platinum card.

What lounges offer

Besides offering more comfortable seating, lounges usually provide beverages like coffee, water, soft drinks, juices, beer and other alcoholic beverages. Domestic US lounges often charge for alcohol. Lounges also provide snacks like fruit, pastries and cheese. They generally offer television, usually a sports or news channel, newspapers, and magazines. Phones are spread out through the lounge, allowing members to make calls or accessing a dial-up internet service. Wireless internet access is becoming more and more common, offered by providers such as T-Mobile, sometimes for a nominal daily or monthly fee.

Further information

Most major carriers have one or more lounges in their hubs and additionally in major airports they serve. Two of the most widespread clubs owned by US carriers are United Airlines' Red Carpet Club and American Airlines' Admirals Club. For minor airlines' airports, often access to a generic lounge is granted by way of a voucher.

Some airlines in the USA may also offer a First-class lounge or a Business-class lounge in some airports that can be different from their regular lounges, more in line with the European/Asian concept of an airport lounge as outlined above. In most cases, airlines will offer first class passengers a free pass to their standard airport club. They may also offer Arrival lounges for passengers to shower and rest after coming out of a long-haul international flight.

A quick comparison of various paid lounge programs worldwide is located at [Andrew's Frequent Flyer resources] many airlines outside North America and Australia do not sell lounge membership, reserving lounge access for elite frequent flyers. Due to alliances between airlines, many of these airlines lounges can be accessed through the paid programs of their North American and Australian partners - for instance Qantas Club membership provides access to British Airways lounges.

Lounge systems and locations

This list is very incomplete.

 

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