Overcrowded airport lounges is a worldwide problem. And lounge guests who don’t seem like they belong in a space that was once considered refined is a problem everywhere you go. I felt seen reading this article in – of all things – the Nagpur edition of Indian newspaper The Hitavada published on Sunday.
Many of us may have experienced this. Author spot on. pic.twitter.com/x1KyHLl62S
— Vice Admiral Jaggi Bedi (Retd) (@JaggiBedi) April 12, 2026
If the airport terminal is a test of patience, the Lounge is a full-blown gladiator arena. For the Indian traveller, the lounge is not a place to relax; it is a high-stakes tactical mission to extract maximum ‘Value for Money’ from a credit card that offers two complimentary visits per quarter. The moment that glass door opens, the transformation from ‘tired traveller’ to ‘buffet commando’ is instantaneous.
The strategic perimeter: The first rule of the Lounge Siege is to secure a base of operations. Before a single grain of rice is sighted. A sophisticated deployment of personal effects take place, draping a laptop bag over one chair, a denim jacket over another, and perhaps a single shoe or a half-eaten packet of chips on a third. This ensures a family of four can sit together. Once the perimeter is established the reconnaissance begins.
The ‘poha’-pasta paradox: The lounge buffet is a surreal landscape where the laws of culinary pairing die a messy death. On a single porcelain plate, you will find a geological layering of architectural wonder. A base of oily ‘poha’; a lonely, slightly damp chicken nugget; a scoop of penne arrabbiata and a ‘gulab jamun’ swimming precariously in a lake of ‘sambar’.
The frantic frenzy is driven by the primal fear that the ‘paneer butter masala’ might run out before your next trip.
This leads to the mountain manoeuvre: Piling food so high that it defies gravity. If you aren’t carrying a plate that looks like a scale model of the Himalayas, are you even getting your credit card’s worth? To eat lightly is to let the banks win, and no self-respecting traveller will allow that.
The beverage border dispute: Then there is the coffee machine—the ultimate bottleneck of human civilisation. Here, a silent war of attrition takes place. There is always one person—usually an uncle in a safari suit—trying to decipher the ‘Cappuccino’ button as if it were the launch code for a nuclear missile. Behind him, a line of twelve people vibrates with the intensity of a jet engine. Meanwhile, at the bar, the ‘Free Alcohol’ signal goes out like a silent whistle. Suddenly, people who haven’t had a drink in three years are double-fisting gin and tonics at 10:30 AM, because “It’s included, na?”
The ‘last boarding call’ looting: The approaching boarding time triggers the snack heist. Suddenly, the ‘all-you-can-eat’ policy is interpreted as ‘all-you-can-carry’.
Apples, small packets of Marie biscuits, and those tiny sealed water bottles disappear into handbags and laptop sleeves with the speed of a magician’s sleight of hand.
The logic is bulletproof: the airline might offer a dry, overpriced sandwich, but the lounge offers a ‘takeaway’ service that—while not officially sanctioned—is morally required.
As the traveller stumbles toward the gate, clutching a stomach full of mismatched carbs and a pocket full of sugar sachets, there is a profound sense of victory. They have conquered the lounge.
Most importantly, they have eaten enough to power a small village for a week, all for the price of a two-rupee credit card authentication charge!
Turkish Airlines Lounge, Washington Dulles
American Express Centurion Lounge, Philadelphia
It’s all about scarcity psychology, middle class status performance, and aggressive value extraction. The lounge is supposed to be a premium refuge, but travelers treat it like anything but – sizing seats, piling plates, queueing for coffee, and raiding the snack station before boarding.
- Lounge access is not experienced as luxury. It is experienced as a challenge to maximize return on a scarce credit card perk.
- Once “free” enters the picture, ordinary standards collapse. They’re maximizing intake, not building meals.
- Crowding leads to territory marking, fear of shortage, and queueing.
“If you get 36 slices of salami per Delta sky club lounge visit, you break even on your annual fee after just 30.5 lounge visits.”
@meat.slut Delta executives hate this 1 money saving trick #meat #traveltiktok #travel #foryoupage #fyp #meatslut @delta ♬ Little Bitty Pretty One – Thurston Harris
One passenger at the New York JFK Chase Sapphire lounge was spotted maybe taking what amounts to a record for food removed from a lounge?
The couple next to me filled up two duffel bags worth of food. They basically shoved entire plates of desserts, prepared food, etc. and ordered six Sapphire Burgers, etc. and put them in their duffel bags inside empty boxes they had brought. There was a huge pile of empty plates they stashed behind a plant.
Chase Sapphire Lounge, Las Vegas
Lounges are victims of their own success with a collapse of decorum under crowding and attracting customers who desperately need to maximize “free” regardless of quality. The more crowded lounges become, the more norms deteriorate.
Credit card-accessible lounges scaled access well beyond their premium capacity. American Express isn’t looking to deliver a quality lounge, they’re looking to grow their cardmember portfolio. And as long as people keep applying for the card, it reinforces that Centurion lounges are at least good enough as they are. Crowding and mass experience isn’t just a function of passengers and constraints, it’s the business model.
Ironically, card access first drove quality. Amex Centurion lounges were better than airline lounges. And airline lounges themselves have gotten better due to the competition. That was attractive to more people than those lounges could handle. And now cardmembers will wait an hour in line to get into a busy space when they could be relaxing at the airport TGI Friday’s the whole time.
Seems like people should have more integrity than that and that couple clearly planned on doing that. Maybe there should be someway you can only order one burger/main dish per person? To stop people like that who ruin these lounges for everyone else. Who took the picture of it—could they have stopped it? Makes you wonder..
What they are doing is basically stealing when they take that much food. A little bit for your flight is one thing, bringing boxes and 2 duffle bags worth of food is another.
Can’t buy class and some of the behavior in lounges prove it.
There’s nothing in the rules that says a dog can’t play basketball… or you can’t order and take 6 hamburgers…
“Bunch of savages in this airport lounge.”
I have worked with many Indian and Chinese nationals that were great people so this isn’t meant to be racist. However I run into people all over the world that complain about the way most Indian and mainland Chinese nationals act. Crowding, pushing, littering, breaking into lines etc are common behavior. Assume it is cultural but not a good experience for the rest of us
You seem fixated by this “stolen food problem.” I recall you’ve done several other posts on this topic. I visit more than 50 lounges a year, year after year, I think I’ve seen someone take food ONCE, in a Tupperware. And it wasn’t a lot of food, like something you might want to eat on the plane. I’m sure it happens more than this (I’m not lounge security) but I’m certain that “mass food theft” is very rare. Of course somebody wanting a bag of chips for their foodless domestic flight would be much more common, which is why US lounges rarely have packaged snacks.
The REAL lounge probably is that the lounges are massively oversubscribed. And I fear it’s getting worse, as the elite seem to love these expensive credit cards that give them lounge access. I was just in a Chase Sapphire lounge at an off peak time — the terminal was empty — but the lounge was packed to capacity. This is the real airport lounge problem, and I don’t see an obvious solution — raising vard fees and limiting companions hasn’t worked.
I remember meeting a prolific FlyerTalk poster on a flight about 15 years ago. At the lounge in MSP he proceeded to fill bags with the snack mix. Back then not so much to take but ‘take’ he did. This was back when lounges were populated by road warriors and nerds who figured out the games of the programs, fewer of the ‘tourists’ that fill them now.
Did my second Chase lounge waited one hour to enter (las Vegas)and they forgot I was standing letting in others out of order who arrived after me.
The ordering system like the first visit in San Diego crashed
Coffee machine broken and the smash burger just not my thing at all. The cornbread was great and everything else pretty much sucked
Folks gobbled up their food as though they hadn’t eaten in a few days
Happy to sit at the gate. Clubs have become for the common folks so when everyone has access their is nothing exclusive about lounge access
Décor was nice but unlikely to return Some team members were pleasant to their credit
I don’t think this is a common enough problem. Never seen anyone do this in person. I did see someone on Insta propose this food stealing from lounge tactic and the comments were calling her out for it.
But yes, for the people who do it, shame on you!
i think if someone was feeling a duffel bag worth, then they should be have the privilege of the lounge taking away. So wrong.
Had a Chase burger at LAS last weekend. It was nothing special, definitely inferior to In-N-Out or 5Guys. Alas neither option was available. Personally I thought the cold noodles were a better option, though it never occurred to me to bag them up.
Chase is definitely the best option if you can skip the wait (as we did)
@ Linda — Integrity? Look at our so-called “leaders”, and you will quickly see the lack of integrity in our society is top-down.
@ Retired Gambler — I’m not sure why you single out Chinese and Indian people. Your description of people “crowding, pushing, littering, breaking into lines” sounds like the average American. Again, look no further than the pigs in charge and their supporters.
It is rather tiring when people make political comments on a site dedicated to travel issues. Perhaps it’s the only way they can get people to listen to them.
Do you intend to be offensive and condemn more than a billion people on this planet? that not every gracious.
Why don’t you substitute “Blacks” for “Indians” and “Friend Chicken” for “Gulab Jamun,” step back and look at what you’ve written and tell me how filthy you feel.
What I always find amusing is that second half where people have zero problems flaunting their “hacks” and posting on social media for everyone to see, including the companies that can review against their policies and, if they wanted to, could terminate their access or adjust policies to make that practice against policy. At that point it’s up to whether the airline cares or not (36 slices of salami? maybe not. duffle bags full of food? maybe…).
Makes me think about the guy, in the 1980’s, that took most of the miniature danish at the United Red Carpet Club and placed them in his briefcase. I suppose that it was appropriate that he had a boarding pass on a flight to Moline!
The comments here never cease to entertain
This is as much an argument as to why we need to limit immigration from many countries.
@Gene — 100%. Worst role-models. The fish rots at the head. 204ish days until midterms. Time to clean up!
@Derek McGillicuddy — I kinda miss the all-caps, sir. Also, gulab jamun is like my favorite dessert, behind malva pudding. Yum!
While I think that you’re overstating things as a whole it’s by a matter of degree rather than an order of magnitude. If abusers got permanently banned then abuse would ease.
I have an Indian friend that complains about Indians. He won’t even go to Costco.
I also have Turkish wife and am lucky to see completely different society in Istanbul than most Americans. There is certainly a major cultural riff in both.
@Derek McGillicuddy – this was an article in an Indian paper, the point is that the issue is worldwide and not merely limited to the United States
@Gary Leff — Half of your posts and unrestrained comment sections are a real-time lesson in logical fallacies as well as the nuance between mere preference and harmless bias, versus harmful prejudice, vile discrimination, outright bigotry/animus (I recall at least one hard-r many months ago), and sometimes literal death threats (against me at least, but I don’t take someone telling me ‘KYS’ seriously), in this modern social-media post-truth era that we’re all living through. Was it always this way, or did it get worse over time?
Have to say I was at LAS a few weeks ago after Feb 1 and the difference between the C1 lounge and Sapphire lounge was night and day. Got to the airport early as work was finished and put myself on the list for the sapphire lounge. An hour and a half to get in… Burger had gone downhill since last time the pattie was thin and dry, the pork bun felt undercooked and the nori fries, while still flavorful were dry. The quality of food really has gone down hill since January. Contrast that with the C1 lounge which had no wait and I was able to walk right in. Centurion had about a 45 minute wait. I went to the bar and was met by a friendly bartender and I had asked her if things felt different after Feb 1st and she said most definitely. She had mentioned the clientele were more upscale now and civilized. I chatted with a couple others at the bar and they had mentioned the same. The lounge felt more like the Centurion when it first launched years ago; a quiet place to get away from the terminal with a good selection of drinks and food. The food has also gone downhill at the C1 lounge compared to when it first launched but was still not bad. The bartender made an excellent espresso martini with rum and the 2 bartenders there felt like our own personal bartenders as there were only a few people they had to tend to. Two families that were traveling together came in both with a couple of kids which was great as I will be bringing mine thru there in a month. Contrast that with the groups of 8 I had to wait behind last August when I tried to get my family into the lounge. It was super aggravating because me and my wife each have our own VX cards so to have to wait behind a bunch of authorized users and their guests was super annoying. Turns out limiting lounge access and having quirky card approval rules is the way to cut down on lounge overcrowding. Hopefully that remains the status quo for a long while. I’m glad I didn’t rage cancel like so many others when they announced the change and lounge access policy. Who knew the subprime card would be the preferred lounge card when their lounge is an option.
@ 1990 — I realize I could look these things up on the internet (duh!), but what the hell are gulab jamun and malva pudding? Where I’m from, we eat things like cobbler, pie, and ice cream for desert.
Kudos to JoeyD for calling out the people who try to use a travel forum to spew their political views. I don’t care what side you’re on, this is not the place to to do it. Please keep it about travel.
The airline lounges in MSP 15 years ago — which was a bit after Republican US Senator Larry Craig was caught in an “incident” seeking yet another bathroom fling — were slim pickings for food to take to the flight. What was it, a packet of open carrots, opened package of cookies or unwrapped, bitten apple?
Greetings 1990,
The crass online behavior has gotten worse over time. MAGA Lord cracked open the doors wider and wide, but he’s a symptom of the times where we ended up with government by, for and of undignified attention-seeking social media “influencers”.
@ APrez — Isn’t it funny that people don”t want to hear about politics now that theyve been shown they were wrong!
@GUWonder — Thank you. Glad it’s not just me. At times, I’m like, what the hell happened. Is it just bots, troll farms, rage bait, etc., or literally the worst common denominator (my TDS acting up, so I’m told, repeatedly), because that sole individual has really removed the masks from so many. I regularly call them out on here and elsewhere, and will keep doing so. But, yeah, I guess it is all one big grift in the end. And even when it is exposed, like Tim Pool getting $10 million from Russia (RT to Tenet Media), it basically gets swept under the rug like the Panama/Paradise Papers. We should and do know better…
@Gene — Delicious desserts, all of them, yours included.
@Gene — You’re correct. Folks like @JoeyD and @APrez are acting like the parents in Don’t Look Up… “No politics! We want the jobs the comet will bring.” Basically, the right wingers who are honest with themselves know that nothing is going well, and they’re gonna lose big in the midterms. Their project has failed. I hope we will prevail, remedy these horrors, and begin to heal soon.
@ 1990 — Is that like the jobs the blockade will bring?
Some people’s kids.
Many lounges are just not a place to relax any more. The American lounges in Charlotte are almost always overcrowded and not a pleasant experience. More often than not I step inside, see what a disaster it is, turn right around and walk out. I’d rather pay $25 for a drink at a less crowded airport bar than feel like I have to fight the public hoard to use the lounge my loyalty should afford me. Airlines need to fix this problem with more focus on the loyal customer experience and less on credit card applications.
I agree that this is an exception and not common, but I would hope that employees are empowered or that rules are revised to limit such behavior. I recall also seeing this in hotel lounges, where, once in NYC at a Hilton lounge, a family of 3 packed about a dozen bottles of water and soda cans into their bags, then depleted a cookie tray without any concern for the other lounge guests. I immediately thought, “Ah, this is why this lounge is largely limited to apples, bananas, and soda and water.” Saw a similar event happen in Houston a couple of years later, so I’m not surprised that very few Hiltons in the U.S. have lounges for this reason. After learning how easy it is to qualify for Diamond status in the U.S., it sorta made sense.
@Retired Gambler. Of course there are region-based cultural differences. None of us would deny the norms for behavior differ throughout US regions. The difference are more extreme when we add more distance and languages. Early US fast food in China had a problem when they discovered the Chinese norm isn’t to queue in arrival order, but to push their way to the front. Chef explained why such observations aren’t racist in South Park 2.5. If one of those posters I don’t read wants to accuse you of racism, ask them if they’ve ever made reference to Florida man and how they justify their observation. I understand the many regions across the world I visit have different cultural norms. I won’t count my change in Japan.
At least some of the problem is being relieved with lounges like C1 that have grab and go and also some of the airlines have also introduced grab and go.
It seems to me that food hoarding could be easily dealt with doing two simple things:
1. Provide each person entering a lounge with one meal ticket per person.
2. Except for non-alcoholic beverages and snacks, pre-meals would be “served” by a lounge employee in trade for the ticket. No ticket, no food beyond snacks.
Simple. The lounges might even save money concerning the number of dishes they would have to wash “per person”. It is not an airport lounge’s responsibility to feed people their beyond their visit.
I have begun to shun airport lounges. They are becoming a venue where people act how they want and do what they wish, all at the expense of others. Offering something for “free” can often be a precursor to those behaviors. Paying for a drink and a meal in an airport restaurant is a small price to pay (even at inflated prices) to often remove oneself from lounge bedlam.
RE: 1990’s comment, well written and thought out.
But . . . in my work life in several different jobs in my life, I’ve been shot at, taken hostage, taken into custody by the Russian Border Guard worked in a war zone . . . And sat in a crocodile in a little village outside of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. It’s comforting to know these are merely verbal assaults.
Most parties loose in the mid-term.
But being the first time I’ve commented, I must say on a certain level, it’s rather fun.
But your attack, or should I call it your counterattack, doesn’t bother me. In my work life, I’ve been shot at, taken hostage, taken into custody by the Russian Border Guard, worked in a war zone . . . and sat on a live crocodile in a little village outside of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
Yes! Yes! As someone said before, we want to dump the current guy and go back to unfettered illegal entries of the last administration. Oh and increased crime rates in many left-leaning cities .That way, you rich guys can get richer since you won’t have to pay for high-priced labor.
1990 says:
April 14, 2026 at 4:52 am
@Gene — You’re correct. Folks like @JoeyD and @APrez are acting like the parents in Don’t Look Up… “No politics! We want the jobs the comet will bring.” Basically, the right wingers who are honest with themselves know that nothing is going well, and they’re gonna lose big in the midterms. Their project has failed. I hope we will prevail, remedy these horrors, and begin to heal soon.
Maybe If you stop people from Bringing Large Purses (BAGS) or Backpacks into the Lounges, problem will solve itself. I have seen Indian/Chinese so called Guests clean out the Pastries,Fruits, Dates,Figs,etc from the Lounge Tables in a matter of seconds. You can always spot those kinds because they sit away from the crowds in Far corners.By the way they have trained their young ones to bring Plate Fulls from the Tables in multiple Trips. Malaysian Hotels are notorius because of the Indians/Chinese abusing the previlage due to cheap fares.
@Gary – I see this one made Fox News today. Congratulations!!
The Guest Snack Removal Syndrome isn’t limited to airport lounges. At the M lounge at a London Marriott last year an older American couple came in with a shopping bag and cleaned out all the packaged snacks and fruit. Whoosh! Gone!
I sarcastically remarked right to the man that “it’s good no one else wants to have anything” he glared at me as his wife was cleaning out the scones and clotted cream into Tupperware containers.
No shame, no conscience. It was all about them.
Oh, and there is a Marks and Sparks food hall a ten minute walk from the hotel, but I had the impression that these were the same people who would burn gas circling a parking lot to get the space closest to the door at Wal-Mart.
The Carnival cruisers have arrived in the lounges!
Up next: we discuss the invention and useage of Bluetooth headsets. They’re like magic made by Witches, y’all!