The Worst Airline Lounges

The Flying Critic says avoid the KLM lounge in Houston. And if it’s as bad as he says, why not?

Use the nice Air France lounge that is less than a minute away. Between the SkyTeam lounge sharing rules and the fact that both KLM and Air France are wholly owned subsidiaries of Air France-KLM it makes no sense why this KLM lounge is still open.

I recently posted on the very best airline lounges. But which ones are the absolute worst?

Surely the Alitalia Boticalli Lounge in Milan has to be up there, and far worse than KLM’s Houston offering. I say that even though the Milan lounge has showers. Ahh… But will it have towels? Luckily it did when I was there last year. Unfortunately, there was no hot water and the drain was clogged. Out of the shower, I just wanted a coffee, but the line was 20 people deep. So I thought I might sit down, but that would have required an empty chair . . . (Fortunately on my return I used the British Airways lounge even though I was flying Alitalia, ah the benefits of status.)

The Thai Airways lounge in Osaka, visited last year, was pretty sparse and housed directly beneath the trains which take you to and from the terminal. On the plus side there was free internet. On the minus side the whole lounge shook every few minutes as the train came in or out of its station above.

Surely there are others, please warn your fellow travelers in the comments.

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 »

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  1. What is the worst airline lounge in the world?…

    Gary at View from the Wing asks what is the worst airline lounge in the world? He offers the Alitalia Boticalli Lounge in Milan as a possible contender. I agree that is an awful lounge. It’s even worse than the 20 year old KLM lounge that I posted abo…

Comments

  1. I agree that the Alitalia Boticalli Lounge in Milan is about as bad as it gets. Although when I was there with my wife in December 2006 the staff went and bought pizza from the food court and cut it up and put it out on the bar for people to eat!

    I’m also happy to report that the KLM lounge that I highlighted in my post WAS recently closed and replaced with brand new larger and properly equipped lounge. See: http://www.fly2houston.com/0/765778/0/1906D1934/

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