News and notes from around the interweb:
- Service not scaling at the new Delta One lounge JFK? I wrote that the place was clearly being overhyped and that it was going to have challenges under the strain of actual operations, not reflected in what the airline was showcasing when it was empty.
Before peak evening departures this place doesn’t seem to be doing well. Other reports are that there are lines to get in. They promote 500 seats but that doesn’t mean capacity for 500 passengers – there are tables of four that get taken by one person, people drap their coats and bags on chairs, etc. And staffing seems like it needs to be beefed up, too, when people complain they cannot get water.
Busier than I expected. That’s just me being bad at math and # of D1 fliers. Access rules make sense…
Brasserie is slow and service is meh. 40 mins for an entree and still waiting. Tables next to me both complained re: speed and one dude had to leave for his flight. Water has not been refilled, cutlery not replaced between courses, no additional drinks offered. Also, butter in foil? This isn’t meant to be flight food!
- “Looks like the perfect place to throw down a Sith Emperor”
This hotel in Shanghai
byu/AtttentionWh0re inDamnthatsinteresting - Breeze approved to fly internationally presumably Mexico and the Caribbean, though starting initially with charters.
- Well isn’t this the most New York thing ever.
We were at JFK airport when my husband stopped the car to get a wheelchair for my mom who’s 75 years old, a stroke patient with half body paralyzed. He was gone for maybe 2 minutes if that. In the car, there were 3 kids under 5 including a 5 month old. So in total 2 adults and 3 kids. Tow truck came. Didn’t even check if there were people, they hooked up the car and lifted the front 2 tires off the ground, and drove for 3 seconds while I was honking continuously.
- I mean, I get frustrated by inconsistent benefits delivery from Marriott Bonvoy too… but don’t ever let things go this far.
Drunk guy kicks in hotel front door before getting dropped by a cop… pic.twitter.com/wbdmVBdj0Y
— Fight Mate (@FightMate) June 30, 2024
(I was joking, natch.)
That guy totally deserved it, hopefully he gets jail time and pay for the damaged door.
More vapor ware from Delta. AA/BA have 65k square feet for the intl and transcon biz/first lounges at JFK. Delta has…39k.
Prob would have been fine if they didn’t try to shoe horn in the domestic transcon pax.
But typical Delta hype
Hey Greg,
you said the same thing on Ben’s site so I will say what I said here as well.
Is this the AA that can’t make money flying the Atlantic or Pacific, the AA that BA would rather send its connecting passengers on AS and B6 than AA, or the AA that can’t be bothered to fully cater its aircraft out of two of its largest hubs?
And, no the transcons don’t make or break the deal. Not only do AA transcon premium passengers get access to AA’s lounge but DL only has about 40 Delta one seats going to LAX or SFO every 90 minutes.
There have been extensive delays at JFK over the past week which extends the amount of time people stay in lounges and actual customers said there was at most a couple minute line – because Delta started lines when the D1 lounge reached 85% capacity which is lower than what many airlines do.
The SkyClubs in JFK are less full which was expected as people are wanting to have a look at the new Delta One lounge and are shifting from the 2 SkyClubs which the Delta app shows were never both full yesterday even with delays and Delta’s full transatlantic schedule.
Delta is adding the 767 back to JFK-SFO next summer which means even more total seats and more D1 seats plus premium economy including on the new A321NEOs.
What is true is that the giant sucking sound of revenue and high value passengers continues from Terminal 8 at JFK to Terminal 4 and that sound will be augmented by passengers moving from EWR to JFK.
ITS a shit hole !! everything was breaking in there already
you mean the stuff you touched?
Others said it was a great experienced, well-staffed, definitely better than any other US airline lounge anywhere.
None of which changes that AA continues to lose high value passengers to DL. You did see AA’s revised investor guidance from a month ago that highlighted the revenue decline?
It’s no wonder there is plenty of space in AA’s lounges.
I was in the Delta One Lounge at JFK on Friday, headed to FCO. The experience was lackluster. The space itself is beautiful. The quality of the food is uneven, but generally quite good. The service did range from disinterested, brusque, and lacking in polish, to pretty decent. The space was super crowded and the vibe was the usual Greyhound waiting room that is any Delta lounge.
The icing on the cake though was the very dated Delta One cabin aboard the A330-300 and the broken IFE all the way to Italy.
Premium experience for sure.
There’s simply more actual space in AAs central intl premium JFK lounges. 37% more if you are generous and give DL allocation for the 10k sf Virgin Clubhouse which is in the distant A pier. 70% more if you exclude it. Reality is around 50% more accounting for many pax not willing to hike that far for the surplus at the Clubhouse.
DL is not planning for future ‘share’ gains with this little space, just playing catch up.
Holding AA at JFK out as some example of strategic success is one of the more laughable concepts.
AA overbuilt the T8 palace and has been trying to figure out how to use it, let alone fill it, for over 20 years.
All of the best lounges in the world don’t matter if AA can’t make money flying planes from NYC and offer a competitive offering of flights.
The new Delta One lounge competes with AA and BA to LHR where a D1 type lounge matters.
The rest of the competition is with UA at EWR.
And let’s not forget that T1 at JFK is still being rebuilt and a number of airlines that are in T4 will move out, leaving more room for DL and its airline partners. Some of the airlines that will move out have decent lounges.
As much as some want to proclaim how badly DL has failed at its new D1 lounge, there is a pull from the SkyClubs that is taking place and will moderate as people check out the new D1 lounge.
Since access is limited, the people in the D1 lounge represent tens of millions of dollars of revenue to DL every day.
THAT Is what AA and UA can’t duplicate no matter how hard they try.
@Tim: No one is holding out AA as anything other than able to have a premium lounge that is large enough to accommodate their premium passengers, which Delta did not do.
You’ve got a lot of paragraphs there about other things that do not change that Delta’s JFK premium lounge is too small.
Not holding my breath in October when I visit while flying VS. AA Chelsea lounge still the best of breed regardless of how much money they make out of T8.
At least the VS A339 is far better than the ancient fleet DL flies to LHR.
Christopher,
American simply would not have a lounge the size that it has if they had known they would not be the size they now are at JFK.
They overbuilt the terminal, cancelled parts of it, and then passed the hat around to oneworld carriers to get them to move into T8, and BA only moved when their terminal got condemned for the new B6 palace.
I get space is great but trying to argue about what AA has at JFK when it is clear that they are clearly failing in NYC and across the Atlantic is hardly a model that DL or any other airline wants to follow.
And BA didn’t even accept just the facilities that AA had; they did substantial construction on their own facilities.
As multiple people have noted here and elsewhere, DL is likely seeing enormous “I have to see this new thing” bump in visits to the JFK D1 lounge but they have also succeeded at heavily reducing if not eliminating waits at the SkyClub lounges – all in the middle of the peak summer travel season during a week when delays have been high in NYC and the NE.
Let’s see how it pans out in a few months and beyond including next summer.
And T4, like most of JFK, is still a work in progress. The chances that DL’s lounge capacity will grow even further as DL takes over more and more of T4 is pretty high.
The current AA/BA lounge complex opened 18 months ago. They knew exactly the size of their operation when they made the capital improvements.
If you don’t want to deal with a work in progress and a lounge is important to you, you can fly AA/BA out of T8 and avoid the Delta oversold under planned catch up in a hurry lounge.
Greg,
BA invested IN ITS OWN lounges.
AA still has the sunk cost of overbuilding which BA isn’t going to help.
As hard as it is for you to grasp, AA is losing a battle for NYC and you can hitch your star to a loser or you can start rebuilding w/ an airline that has a future. I don’t care if its DL or UA but you will get burned if you intend to stay w/ AA for any length of time.
Don’t let me convince you, though. Tens of thousands of people per month defect from AA to DL which is why there continues to be a gigantic sucking sound as revenue moves from T8 to T4 at JFK.
be sure and turn the lights out when you leave, Gene.
Axioms:
-Avoid JFK if at all possible.
-Avoid Delta in particular at JFK
-See first two.
Still lots of unrelated paragraphs that don’t change that the DL lounge at JFK is too small.
Christopher,
you, like Gary, take a couple tidbits of information – or less and draw sweeping themes.
If you want to sit in an empty lounge, then, yes AA is the way to go.
If you want to go from the lounge to lots of places in the world on lots of flights, then DL and UA should be your choice.
A comparison of DL and UA’s lounges would be far more appropriate along w/ the rest of their operations.
Lounges are an amenity; nobody makes their purchase decisions based solely on lounges
I have a 10-hour layover there in a few weeks. I’ll report back.
Tim – AA and BA created a JOINT lounge complex at JFK in 2022 – investment from both sides
Still remains, at JFK the Delta One lounge and Virgin Clubhouse offer 1/3rd less space than AA/BA offer in a single joint complex. DL One lounge isn’t sized to handle growth with both intl and domestic Delta One pax they’re hoping for next summer. And another Delta One lounge won’t be ready at JFK next summer or likely the following.