EXCLUSIVE: New Heathrow Terminal 4 Priority Pass lounge, ART & LOUNGE, in the El Al space

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• Lady London says:

  7 Jul7 July 08:24

  Will the lounge be better than the pretentious marketing blurb?

  Sounds like El Al just needed to get a contract off their books and found a friendly partner to do a leaseback/rental arrangement.

  They had better keep the kosher food though.

  • Aston says:

    7 Jul7 July 10:35

    That arty-farty pretentious description immediately puts me off the place.
    Do they think visitors will stand in front of the buffet with a far away thoughtful expression, rubbing their beards whilst whispering “hmmmm but what does it mean?”

    • Jb says:

      7 Jul7 July 17:33

      Perhaps ‘art and lounge’ means funky looking but uncomfortable or/and impractical furniture?

• Froggitt says:

  7 Jul7 July 09:22

  Terminal 4 used to host pretty much all BA’s long haul business. Why is it now just 50 flights a day? Unless the plan is to make it a luxury terminal like Dubai, and get out of the bucket and spade/mass market business.

  • JamesLHR says:

    7 Jul7 July 10:20

    T5 is BA/Iberia
    T3 is oneworld designated
    T2 is Star Alliance designated
    T4 is Skyteam and unaligned “at risk” airlines

    Peppered about are a few quirks including DL in T3, MH/QR in T4 and MEA in T3.

    T4 is the least preferred terminal. Compared to the others, it doesn’t receive anywhere near the same invested from Heathrow. Additionally, operationally it has issues such as taxiing across a live runway to get to it etc.

    • Doug M says:

      7 Jul7 July 11:15

      Good informative post, thank you. If the expansion goes ahead, T4 will be even worse positioned right? Expansion North West, T4 South East, or is my geography skewed.

      • JamesLHR says:

        7 Jul7 July 11:31

        Lots of different aspects of expansion going on.

        Master plan is 3rd runway and “T6” which would sit between the new runway and existing northern runway.

        Smaller expansion plans exist to increase capacity of use in T3 and T5 for the current term.

        There is also the master plan expansion of T2A to encompass the majority of the footprint of T1. At this point T3 is demolished remote piers like T2B and T5B/C to be in its place.

        T4 is a grey question mark. In original plans it was to be demolished, but it’s life expectancy is being extended and extended.

        Personally at some point the hangers at the east (not all as some are listed) really should be moved across onto the T4 site and another pier built there would make good common sense, but then this is Heathrow!

        • Doug M says:

          7 Jul7 July 13:00

          Thank you.

        • Gavin says:

          7 Jul7 July 14:59

          I can see T4 being the budget airline terminal when Heathrow gets expanded.

    • Andrew says:

      7 Jul7 July 15:07

      I’m not sure I would agree that T3 is One World
      designated – major players including Emirates, Delta and Virgin fly out of T3.

    • Russ says:

      7 Jul7 July 15:07

      James, do you know which lounge Kuwait Airlines uses at Heathrow? Cheers.

  • Lady London says:

    10 Jul10 July 00:48

    Basically it’s customary for the ‘home’ airline to be first into the newest terminal. When T4 was new then you are correct T4 was BA’s (though not as exclusively as T5 is now BA’s. At that time, broadly speaking T1 was BA shorthaul possibly with EI (I’ve forgotten) T2 non BA shorthaul and widely regarded as the worst terminal, and T 3 was primarily non BA longhaul.

    When T6 is built BA will be first in there I am sure.

• darrenf says:

  7 Jul7 July 09:24

  “there has been absolutely no publicity about the switch at all. This article is the first time it has been mentioned anywhere in the travel press”.

  This claim seems a little off, Ground Handling International magazine covered the move last month: http://magazine.groundhandling.com/news/art-lounge-opens-lounge-in-heathrow-airport-for-el-al/

  • Rob says:

    7 Jul7 July 09:47

    Saw that, it doesn’t count 🙂

• Harry says:

  7 Jul7 July 09:25

  El Al is a very poor airline that is struggling to find its place in the real world. It has long traded on a curious mix of “Jewish pride” and blackmail “we have the best security” to keep customers even though it is overpriced and very under serviced. Its staff are arrogant and unpleasant, yes a generalization there are of course a few “bad” apples who actually treat customers well, and its business offering is way below other European and Middle East airlines. This is obviously a cost-cutting measure. You write that “El Al is also about to come under strong pressure at Heathrow. Virgin Atlantic is launching services to Tel Aviv and British Airways is introducing an A350 with Club Suite. easyJet and Wizz Air already provide low cost competition out of Luton.” Surely that is exactly the time to look after your premium customers not toss them to the wind of a generic lounge. The BA product to Tel Aviv is far superior to El Al and that is even without the exciting looking new A350 Club Suite. The Virgin Upper Class product from New York to London is much better than the new LY Dreamliner Business seat and service. The BA lounges at Heathrow have kosher food offerings, as does the Virgin lounge and the quality of the Hermolis sourced Kosher meals in BA, Economy, Club and First are far superior to the EL Al kosher meals. As AA has shown, saving a few bucks is a simple thing to do but is often a very wrong way to go.

  • John says:

    7 Jul7 July 12:08

    I don’t know if LY can be or wants to be compared to the other Middle East airlines.

    • Harry says:

      7 Jul7 July 13:29

      No, John LY relies on a niche spot to, as I said, trade on a curious mix of “Jewish pride” and blackmail “we have the best security”, to keep customers. Even though it is a slight hassle involving an extra flight, you would be surprised how many Jewish Israeli passengers use Royal Jordanian flying TLV-AMM and then on to London and New York. The service, including high-quality kosher meals, beats LY any day. LY might not want to be compared but it certainly is. The Hebrew welcome greeting invariably given to obviously Jewish Israeli passengers in the RJ lounge is always welcome!

• Shoestring says:

  7 Jul7 July 09:30

  Sounds like https://rewardflightfinder.com has got the BA peak/ off peak calendar as well 🙂

  Is HfP going to publish it?

  • Shoestring says:

    7 Jul7 July 09:31

    oops wrong board

  • Rob says:

    7 Jul7 July 09:45

    Tim told me he had it, he is going to send it over when he was checked it. He got it via a back door.

• The Jetset Boyz says:

  7 Jul7 July 10:05

  It’ll be interesting to see who the AMS & CDG to BHX slots will appeal to so definitely one to watch.

• Ophir says:

  7 Jul7 July 10:26

  The small Israeli airline Arkia (IZ) also flies regularly to STN using the first A321Neo to be delivered.

  • marcw says:

    7 Jul7 July 17:34

    you mean A321LRneo

    • Ophir says:

      7 Jul7 July 19:31

      yes 🙂

• n_g says:

  7 Jul7 July 10:44

  Saw this is the PP app yesterday as I’ll be in T4 next week. Have to say it does not look great from the photos. I’ll either stick with the Plaza Premium lounge like last time or check out the SkyTeam lounge for a change.

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