British Airways now using the No1 Traveller lounge at Gatwick North – feedback?

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• Juha says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:21

  Went on a Thursday late morning. BA check-in told us we would use My Lounge but once there we were ushered into No 1.
  Was perfectly agreeable, better than the BA lounge which I’d seen a couple of weeks earlier. In particular the food was much better; didn’t try the wine as it felt a bit early. It was a bit crowded though, at a distinctly off-peak time, so I can imagine it would get busy at peak time.
  Great as a business lounge but if CCR is your benchmark you’re going to be disappointed.

• Aeronaut says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:21

  The inveterate soaks at Flyertalk could do with cutting down on their champers consumption anyway!

• Troll Basher says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:23

  Queue to get an entry card
  Queue to relinquish said card
  Enjoy a complimentary pre-flight energising workout as you walk aimlessly up and down looking for an available space to sit
  Queue at the bar whilst the lone bar tender deals with the Faro golfing party’s order for 8 “bloody large G&Ts,” Casandra’s kids wanting Fish Finger sandwiches and “This is bloody outrageous; I’m GOLD!” who wants a glass of champagne before his hbo ticket to Edinburgh.
  You resign yourself to taking a pee, only to find, after knocking out some unfortunate fellow standing behind the door in the corridor, that there is another queue.

  And will someone please turn down that infernal music – it isn’t Glastonbury.

  As I leave, I walk into the serene calm of the perfume sprayers, the luxury car raffle ticket sellers, the people running for their flights, and all is well again; and I find a loo with no bloody queue…

  • Worzel says:

    2 Feb2 February 07:50

    Troll Basher, thank you for your post- good to have a laugh on wet and windy, grey February morning 🙂 .

  • Jim says:

    2 Feb2 February 09:49

    Sums up the experience perfectly!

  • Lady London says:

    2 Feb2 February 12:27

    Well you did choose to fly from Gatwick…. so what did you expect ?

    sorry couldnt resist that, I hate the place even though I shall have to start using it again soon

    • Worzel says:

      2 Feb2 February 13:55

      Has “One’ fallen upon difficult times M’Lady? 🙂 .

  • Jules Lyndon says:

    2 Feb2 February 13:32

    Great comments, they certainly made me chuckle, i shan’t be dashing to this lounge on Friday afternoon and shall indeed enjoy the ambiance of the terminal that you so poetically described in your comments

  • NickS says:

    3 Feb3 February 06:14

    also sums up my experience about 10 days ago whilst waiting to take a flight to Mauritius. the lounge was full of large groups on cheap flights trying to drink the place dry. not a lot of soft seating available though large restaurant style area fairly empty. had to queue for ages for the smallest glass of wine ive ever seen (about 100ml if that) and. very little choice other than two reds and two whites none of which I would rate. Whilst I agree the old BA lounge wasnt great either it was in my view light years better than this pathetic offering. The only saving grace was that the food was marginally better than BA lounge but then I only tried the fish finger bun which filled a hole. the cakes teas coffee etc were fine. But the toilets were dire! Absolutely filthy and clearly hadnt been serviced for hours if not days… from memory only a couple of cubicles in the male section and they were both blocked up and looked disgusting. The BA lounge if nothing else had plenty of loos and they were always clean. Had to queue again for another smithering of wine and complained to bar supervisro about the loos but he seemed decidedly uninterested. Decided to go to the gate way too early as probably a nicer waiting area!! And what a pathetic reception from BA giving out a pass to the lounge which you then give to someone else all of two feet away. A complete e waste of time and effort. As is usual with BA no sooner than we had enetered the lounge we got a text questionnaire about the lounge experience before we had even experienced it! normally dont bother completing it but this time I did as so p****d off. Got a bog standard response the next day from a BA CSA which didnt even address the issues I raised, just a standard generalised apology. As someone else said BA would be better off giving out a few champagne vouchers or a few avios to compensate rather than this pretty pathetic attempt at providing such a poor lounge experience. And finally as an ex BA gold card holder now reduced in retirement to paying for my own travel and only getting lounge access as I pay for club or get my 241 tkts I would point out that even in the main old BA lounge at north terminal anyone could always get a glass of champagne if they asked a member of staff for one which was then secreted from out the back somewhere!! I never had a problem! Bring back the old lounge is all I can say! Difficult to avoid LGW if going to Mauritius but I would certainly try to go from LHR T5 if at all possible.

• Pid says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:28

  Visited four times in Jan but all of them were off peek when it was pretty quiet. Thought it was very nice compared to the old BA lounge. I was travelling with two friends and I could get them both in by collecting the BA voucher for one and then booking the other in on my Priority Pass. It would be nice to have unlimited hot food and the servings you get are very small, however, this stops me eating to much!

• James says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:31

  Same experience for me (as Richard’s comment) – one barman, ridiculous, it wasn’t an off day either as the chap radioed for assistance, then a minute later radioed again and said not to worry it was settling down again, much to the annoyance of the dozen people who had been waiting several minutes or longer. The food (noodles) wasn’t worth the wait, we left it as it was barely palatable. Should have stuck with the bacon buttie which most people appeared to get polish off fairly quickly. All in, will be glad when the new lounge is ready. I visited the old lounge several times and while it was due an upgrade I thought the self serve food was better (comparatively speaking) and much quicker.

  Had a nice beef tagine on the business Club Europe flight to Marrakech which wiped away the memory of the No1 lounge.

• Jj says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:37

  Why does everyone (on ft) keep saying champagne should be available to gold and first. I am silver and specifically sought it out for access to the BA lounge which included champagne in club too! I have three flights out of lgw with Ba this year, and I could have saved my time and money by flying easy jet from my local airport and using my priority pass to go to a third party lounge for free. However, I have been to no1 and although it is a nice space if empty that does not apply when heaving and a mini fishfinger sandwich and no champagne does not cut it for ba’s second hub. BA could easily turn opinion by making champagne available to all BA premium and elite pax ( Inc silver and club) to make up for the crowded facilities and reduced food offering but has chosen not to. I will be chasing status elsewhere next time (hope alitalia match goes through!)

  And raffles, they shut the cinema when BA moved in, so you need to edit your article.

  • Nick Burch says:

    2 Feb2 February 13:41

    If you only had access to the club lounge, then Champagne wasn’t out, you had to know to ask for it from the staff. So, I guess the thinking is that most people there didn’t know it was an option, so won’t miss it.

    On the other hand, anyone with access to the first class lounge (F passengers or Gold card holders or OneWorld equivalents) used to have a few bottles in ice buckets available to pour their own from, so they very much were aware that it (+nicer spirits) were available. The change from unlimited self pour decent champagne, to queue up + pay 8 quid a glass, is therefore quite large and quite obvious to all!

• rob says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:42

  There’s no doubt BA are stuck offering a decent lounge service – they should be offering points as compensation to business and first passengers as they have done before when the product has fallen short (like when cabin fits are not up to current standards on certain routes).

• Frankie says:

  2 Feb2 February 07:48

  OT. Rob, are you not going to post your easyspace interview on HFP? It’s great. Really enjoyed reading it.

  • Rob says:

    2 Feb2 February 09:04

    No, technically they have the copyright.

  • Lux says:

    2 Feb2 February 11:55

    It is a good read! Well done Rob.

    https://www.easyspace.com/blog/2016/02/01/interview-rob-burgess-founder-uks-biggest-frequent-flyer-website-head-points/

    • Danny says:

      2 Feb2 February 18:11

      Thanks for the link and fabulous read, well done Rob 🙂

      • Worzel says:

        3 Feb3 February 07:45

        +1.

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