Review: the Etihad business class lounge in Abu Dhabi

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• RIccati says:

  16 Mar16 March 05:12

  Raffles, a lot of European Eithad flights depart about the same time. Say 11 pm to 2 am, you will find this lounge very crowded.

  • Phillip says:

    16 Mar16 March 07:26

    I second this – being the Middle East, crack of dawn is usually synonymous with overcrowding at airports. I was on the A380 flight back to London on 25 January and by midnight there was not a single seat available. And the queues for the restrooms were ridiculous!

    On the chauffeur front – I too find them difficult to make contact with as they outsource the service and you can only speak to Etihad themselves who only take service requests without being able to confirm them. That said, I’ve never had a problem changing my pick up time when they call me to confirm the time, the day before. They are always happy and quick to make the change, as long as I am talking to the car company and not Etihad.

• Mike says:

  16 Mar16 March 07:44

  I’m currently in the Malaysia Airline First /Golden lounge in Kuala Lumpur reading this article. This lounge has to be one of the worst for premium passengers. Empty huge space. Rubbish food. Rubbish drinks. Rubbish service. I found Etihad a bit boring maybe because I travel so often with them and am in their lounge seemingly all the time. But no more (major) complains about Etihad’s lounge after seeing this empty, wasted space of a so called premium lounge.

  • CV3V says:

    16 Mar16 March 08:41

    I haven’t been in the First class section, but my impression was that the business class section is actually better than First. The food is ok, and a lot better than the BA offerings (sandwiches anyone?), but its scattered all over the lounge and is a bit of a treasure hunt. There are also the chefs who you can order food from. The bar is at the front of the lounge where you enter. Overall it’s an ok lounge, foodwise I much prefer it to BA at Heathrow. However, MAS did seem to waste the opportunity to make the most of the space. If you want real disappointment walk over to the CX lounge in KUL – you will need to boil the kettle to make a cup noodle!

    • gnarlyoldgoatdude says:

      16 Mar16 March 11:04

      Ah, but having lived in Hong Kong and studied in the UK with a student population that was >25% HK Chinese, I know that they like nothing better than cracking out the kettle to make some noodles.

      That is, of course, if they don’t have a rice cooker handy!

      One chap, let’s call him TC, was renowned for having all imaginable gadgets. When our somewhat isolated educational establishment was cut off in a snow storm and the power went out, the usual buzz of electrical activity was still heard from TC’s room. He had managed to put together a generator from various CX trips back home…..he couldn’t imagine an afternoon without his MSG fix.

• Gordon says:

  16 Mar16 March 10:09

  I was recently in the lounge at midnight and it was packed!
  It also has a spa where you can get a complimentary 15 minute facial

• Pawel says:

  16 Mar16 March 12:05

  I was a Terminal 1 Lounge and it was busy between 9pm-1am
  I go free SPA treatment back massage for 15 minutes
  also free pick up service form AirBerlin 3 hours drive
  they provide pick up drop of for any destination in UEA

  good service TXL-AUH for one way Avios 50.000 taxes but that i will be 50% more expensive soon

  • Mark says:

    16 Mar16 March 18:45

    Actually 50,000 avios return in business class currently, plus just under £50 in taxes and fees. We’re about to do it in a week and a half.

    From the end of April it will be 75,000 return.

    One thing that is driving me mad is the continuous loss of our seat selections. It seems to be down to their having two different cabin layouts (despite having only recently completed a refurbishment with flat bed seats). Every time the flight is updated with a cabin layout change we get dumped into random seats, normally in the close-together centre seats which although we prefer window seats wouldn’t be quite so bad if they actually put us next to each other in the same row not up close and personal with a complete stranger.

    And then there’s the fact that they don’t alert you to the fact that you’ve moved and a web site which sends you round in circles when you try to select new seats online. Goodness knows how I managed to do it the first time, but I’ve now had to phone them in Germany twice to sort it out.

    Really enough to make me never want to fly Air Berlin again, and I haven’t even set foot in the airport yet….

• Hingeless says:

  16 Mar16 March 13:07

  Great review, any idea when the f lounge opens, we will be travelling through in early June?

• Dave H says:

  17 Mar17 March 00:16

  OTT slightly but currently sat in Qantas Club at Cairns and they have a Kids zone complete with TV, iMacs and their own fridge stocked with juice and water, a nice touch.

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