The most overcrowded airport lounges over the past few years have been Delta Sky Clubs and American Express Centurion lounges. Both have taken extreme measures to reduce crowding.
- American Express has limited the cards that gain access to its lounges (though also added Delta premium co-brand cards), reduced the time period in which cardmembers have access, and limited guest access.
- Delta has raised the price of club memberships, restricted who can purchase memberships, and eliminated access by club members on basic economy fares. They’ve also taken away access from mid-tier elites and above flying internationally in coach and from employees with memberships or premium credit cards (which they pitched to employees for lounge access only last year).
Delta has even had to provide refreshments to customers standing in line waiting to get into one of their lounges.
American Express has faced a crowding problem because when first introduced, their clubs elevated the airport lounge experience in the U.S. More people will come, and stay longer, than you expect when there’s decent free food – even after accounting for knowing that more people will come and stay longer. Airport space is tough to get and the lounges weren’t big enough for the number of customers they were signing up, either.
Delta has faced a crowding problem because the food in their lounges is better than competitors, because they do not yet have a dedicated business class lounge product (like United and American do) to divert some of their guests, and because anyone with an American Express Platinum card flying Delta has access under their lucrative co-brand deal.
Both Delta and American Express have focused on restrictions, and limiting access to a product that their customers have been entitled to. Neither one focused on providing their customers with an alternative to divert them from lounges.
Singapore Airlines is offering ~ US$7.82 in retail coffee credit for skipping lounge access, presumably during periods of heavy crowding. These credits (35 Malaysian ringgit) can be used either at airport Starbucks or Old Town White Coffee. I’ll take OldTown White Coffee kopitiam over Starbucks.
Interestingly, Singapore Airlines offered me a RM 35 Starbucks voucher to not use the lounge as a Gold member in a premium cabin. pic.twitter.com/oOVsfirxeX
— Mark (@drdoot) February 27, 2023
Delta has a close collaboration with Starbucks already. American Express has given out Starbucks gift cards occasionally in the past when denying cardmembers access due to lounge crowding. Surely they could team to buy these cards at a big discount, driving business to Starbucks and freeing up lounge space.
A Delta Sky Club Executive membership went up by $650 this year. The airline could allow members paying $1495 back into the lounge when traveling on a basic economy fare. That extra membership cost covers a lot of $8 gift cards purchased for some percentage off of that.
At a minimum it seems like providing customers more choice, rather than taking away benefits for customers (and paying employees), seems like the better place to start for an airline that aspires to be a premium brand.
This article is arrogant and insulting to Delta employees and consultants who no doubt have access to better data and modeling than what’s publicly available.
Why not title this “What Singapore Airlines is doing to try to reduce crowding”? The title of this post is a presumptuous offense. The content of this post does not consider any of the difficulties Delta may encounter in implementing such a strategy. Nor does it even begin to prove that this would actually have any effect on crowds.
View From The Conceited Wing
The solution is stop giving access to Amex Plat holders–but we know American Express Airlines won’t do this.
I’ve said before if lounges enforced a business casual dress code you can get rid of the golden corral crowd and buffet lice.
Amex and DL are making big bucks pushing the Reserve Card, the (real) Amex Platinum card, and selling Sky Club memberships. In fact, they are selling more potential lounge admissions/customers than they can handle. This is roughly analogous to selling more seats on a plane than there are seats on the plane, ie overbooking. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a Reserve card holder (who reasonably expects to use a SkyClub before a flight), but can’t get in because of overselling the SkyClub, were entitled to a $50 “denied entry” coupon/cash/ecredit similar to the money one gets when one is denied boarding because DL oversold. Just a thought. Who could enforce this? It’s outside of the DOT’s realm, but perhaps local consumer protection boards can start pressuring Delta to either get real about the number of people eligible to use the SkyClub they are “selling” or pay a penalty to those people denied entry to something they had reasonable reason to believe they purchased but didn’t get.
@Corporate wage slave – the Delta employees who have access to better data that VftW know that nonrevs made up only 2% of the Sky Club volume before the ban.
The only people opting to take an $8 Sbux card instead of stopping by a lounge are those who weren’t going to stop by a lounge anyway, due to time constraints or other considerations.
I only partially agree w/this assertion, although it may be valid: “American Express has faced a crowding problem because when first introduced, their clubs elevated the airport lounge experience in the U.S. More people will come, and stay longer, than you expect when there’s decent free food – even after accounting for knowing that more people will come and stay longer.”
Based on my observation the ruination of Centurion Lounges has been the multiples of guests and extended families admitted. The (Centurion Lounges) have become largely unusable, although I gather some recent changes have been made. I don’t bother with them any more.
overpopulation.
more and more people travel. more and more travelers have the finances to “enhance” their travels and drop $50/visit at any of the airport lounges.
believe the infrastructure development and human planning is failing.
The question for Delta / Amex is where and how do they see the functionality of their lounges in next 6, 12, and 18 months?
I’m always so befuddled by the people who say get rid of amex platinum access for sky clubs and centurion lounges… You think there’s enough revenue first class passengers to justify the enormous footprint of the clubs? Or enough black card holders to keep building centurion lounges? That’s kinda like killing the golden goose, the reason there is so many lounges is because of that partnership.
Delta should charge for ALL alcohol to non members.
First World Problems!
Airport lounges are supposed to be a premium experience. Emphasis on “supposed to be.” They are intended for those travelers who will pay up for a premium experience. They are not intended for those travelers who want cheap access to good eats. But, as we’ve seen, they have missed their mark. I’m on board with Woofie regarding the Amex lounges . . . I’d take an airline’s proprietary lounge over an Amex lounge every time.
As for Delta, gratis access to Delta One passengers, Delta 360s, and Diamonds. It shouldn’t even count as an annual choice. It’s just given. Period. But, adjust the qualification metrics for Diamond to control the headcount. Everyone else pays. Adjust the price to control the headcount (including credit card annual fees). With the headcount controlled, they won’t need time restrictions. There will be winners and losers. But, if nothing is done, everyone loses to some extent.
The solution is for Delta to downgrade its food and beverage options. If they were to say benchmark the Admiral’s Club then the crowding would end. I mean there are overcrowded AC’s dont’ get me wrong, but that’s because they are undersized given the traffic not because people mob them for their meagre food and beverage offerings.
@Lee – Spot on. Since when did “luxury” and “premium experiences” become one-off, transactional arrangements that anyone with a few bucks can obtain? Shouldn’t be a true recognition of status?
Less is more. Raise the bar and weed out the folks trying to game the system.
If that sounds snobby and elitist, just be aware that I too will be one of the people on the outside with the “cattle”.
I’ve never stood in one of those Starbucks lines, but they are generally too long for me to consider that option seriously. I’ve had good luck at Skyclubs the last few months. The Centurian lines tend to be ugly. I would not want to be depending on visiting those lounges.
Enforce a business dress code. All the louts in their PJs will stop coming.
If the carriers were serious about solving the lounge crowding issue they would expand to balance capacity with demand. Despite all of the policy changes at DL, The clubs are still too crowded. There is a difference between being at capacity and being too crowded. This is not getting solved until DL expands the clubs. They have the data to reliably size their clubs based on the demand models.
As for this article, it’s an uninformed fluff piece that undermines the author’s person claim of being a thought leader in travel.
– You’re going to hand me a Starbucks card so instead of standing in the SC line for 20 minutes I can go stand in the Starbucks line for 20 minutes and think I’ll be satisfied?
– What’s your solution if I want to slip into the club because I prefer less crowded restrooms, give me a fast pass to use at the all-gender toilets in the terminal?
– Are you going to refer me to the breastfeeding pods in the terminal so I have somewhere quiet to have a work call between flights?
The issue is someone works for a company, gets status for flying first class everywhere for their job, and then when it’s their vacation, they bring the Wife, the kids, the dog, the nanny. Sure they pay the $50 extra per person, but suddenly it’s a high school cafeteria. I pay $700 for my Platinum Amex. The difference between $700 and $1000 isn’t that much, but if it went to $3,000/yr membership you would bet it would empty out. Although you should let the employees with cards back in. 2% is not that many people. Otherwise the worse you treat the staff, the more like Sears you become.
This policy change was frustrating because the LAX Drkta lounge was mostly unused. Not the closest one to gates, which was having lines out the door, but the one closer to security. It was the exact same food – just no one knows there are two.
1. Enforce dress codes.
2. Enforce behavior codes.
3. Stop using the club as a feeding station for dogs.
3. stop using the clubs as someplace to park a PJ clad family between flights.
4. The clubs were intended as a place away from the crowded terminals to wait for next flight, not a flop house for PJ clad travelers.
5. Stop families from taking over the clubs to babysit the heard by taking up as much space as possible.
C’mmon Delta!!! You can do this!