Passengers Leave Airport Lounges A Mess As Crowds Overwhelm Once-Premium Spaces

If you don’t have airport lounge access and cooked to order restaurant meals bestowed on you like some manna from heaven. If you’ve been to airport lounges you know that most are decidedly mid.

There are exceptions! The Lufthansa First Class Terminal, Air France La Premiere Lounge Paris, Qatar Airways al Safwa lounge Doha for instance. And, for that matter, the American Airlines Flagship First Dining room at Dallas – Fort Worth. The food at the Capital One Landings at New York LaGuardia and Washington’s National airport are pretty good!

American Express, Chase and Capital One have their own lounge networks. Many premium rewards credit cards come with Priority Pass, which pay for one-off visits to pay-to-enter lounges. Most of those are a step down even from what Amex offers, and for that matter a step down from an American Airlines Admirals Club. They’re basic.

And they sometimes look something like this, with used plates, cups, and napkins strewn about, spilled food, and general debris. Because they’re getting paid around $25 per visit, they simply can’t invest much in food, booze, or even staff.

Priority Pass
by
u/thheodosia20 in
Venturex

The seats in this lounge remind me of the color of in Plaza Premium at Dallas – Fort Worth, but I don’t think the tables match? That’s from memory. Perhaps some of you can help identify the lounge from this photo. Of course it’s not just one lounge:

Cmon ppl you can parent better!
byu/bryanoldsalty indelta

The reaction online to the condition of this lounge is overwhelmingly that these passengers are slobs and should be ashamed – and banned from lounge access. “Imagine what their homes looks like…disgusting,” “People are [$#%#] pigs,” “The same people who did this are probably the same kind of people who don’t put their shopping carts back,” and “You actually got in!? Be grateful been almost a year since I’ve been able to use one.”

Here’s a grown man with his feet on the furniture of a United Club in front of a sign that says not to put your feet on the furniture.


Credit: Ari

Money can’t buy class, but money can buy you an overpriced credit card and access to a cafeteria food buffet.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Ahh… good ole filth. Reminds me of the “Please Curb Your Dog” signs all over NYC… only for owners to allow their dogs to literally piss on those signs… (and, on a day like today where temps feel like 90s… oof, the smells…)

  2. @Gary – I beg to differ. The Flagship Lounge at DFW is usually an overcrowded clusterflunk unless you’re in FF Dining. And while we are on the subject, I have been surprised by the number of people apparently running to throw their money at the new PS lounge when 5-star select service is only $650 plus $150 for each additional person. And while I haven’t seen PS in person, I can’t imagine it’s worth several grand more than that excellent service experience.

  3. @Mike Hunt, @Gary Leff — Any word on FF Dining ever opening up again at LAX? It’s just sad.

  4. @1990 – many months ago there was talk amongst senior leadershio about it, but i haven’t heard anything new in the last six months.

  5. Lounges today are usually overcrowded and staff struggles to keep up. And some of the people? Tuesday at the PIT Admirals Clubs while that lounge is almost always spotless and not all that crowded (surprised AA has kept that lounge opened) in comes three bratty children climbing all over the f’n place. Finally, I just relocated to one of the many empty (and quite) gates at the end of B Concourse.

  6. People are disgusting. Wonder “with no home training” if the areas around the tables in their homes look like this. Have some self respect an decency people. This species is reprehensible. Probably be the first ones to complain if they wanted to sit down and came upon this type of mess.

    We basically have been allowed to disrespect everything. I can hear it now “the workers here get paid to clean up, who cares” Smh

  7. @Gary Leff — Wish they’d actually get-on-it. To not have it up-and-running as the World Cup comes to town… I suspect they’ll not even bother before the 2028 Olympics… sheesh.

    @George Romey — ‘Kids these days…’

    @D Fray — This ain’t Japan… that’s, for sure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *