This is our review of the Aspire Lounge at Inverness Airport.
This is part of our series of reviews of airport lounges across the UK. You can see all of the reviews here.
This is the final article from my short trip to Inverness to check out the new Courtyard by Marriott Inverness Airport hotel, which I reviewed here.
After checking out, I took the 90 second walk back to the airport. Security was, unsurprisingly, empty as was the terminal. I was therefore in for a shock when I walked into the lounge and found it virtually full. Luckily, a few minutes later, the easyJet flight to Gatwick was called and it emptied out.
Here it is tucked away in a corner of the terminal:
When we ran a reader review of the lounge three years ago, it was described as “a bit like being in someone’s living room”. You can’t argue with that.
Total seating capacity would be around 25, as long as people were happy to get cosy on the sofas.
This is the best shot I could get showing the whole thing:
One side is glass walled, which is the saving grace of the lounge. It floods the space with light, making it feel a lot larger than it is, and lets you watch the aircraft a few feet away.
You may think, looking at the top picture above, that the lounge would have minimal food and drink. You would be wrong.
It is surprisingly well equipped, although clearly nowhere near what you would expect in a Heathrow or Gatwick lounge. You need to check the fridges because that is where most of the food is hiding.
At 3pm, there was cake, jam and cream scones, yoghurts, crackers and cheese, sandwiches, pastries, fruit, crisps and soup (‘soup of the day’ was Highland Vegetable). I think everyone would find something to suit.
There was no shortage of drink, with a selection of white, red and rose wine, beers, spirits and soft drinks. Everything is free.
What also surprised me was the huge range of magazines available. Newspapers were, admittedly, in fairly short supply and well-thumbed at 3pm but there were around 15 different magazines to pick up, albeit only a handful of copies of each.
Wi-fi was strangely weak given that the lounge has its own password-protected network and there only appeared to be two of us using it once the easyJet flight had boarded. If you need electrical power, be aware that not all seats are near a plug socket. Where there is a plug, it comes with a USB socket too.
There are, unsurprisingly given its size, no toilets inside the lounge. The ladies is just outside the entrance in the main area of the terminal whilst the gents requires a 30-second stroll.
That’s about it! It may possibly be the smallest airport lounge you’ve ever visited, but if I’m honest it did the job perfectly well.
Opening hours vary by season, but it should be open if there are still flights operating. It opens at 5am throughout the year. Latest opening during the Winter season is 6.30pm on Thursdays and Fridays, whilst during the Summer season it goes as late at 8.40pm on Wednesdays.
I got in with my British Airways Club Europe ticket. The Aspire Lounge at Inverness Airport is also part of Priority Pass (buy one here, or get one free with an Amex Platinum card), Lounge Club (two free passes if you get an Amex Gold card) or LoungeKey if you have a HSBC Premier credit card.
If you want to book entry for cash, you can do so via Lounge Pass from £20.99 per adult.
About Head for Points
I spy one of those woeful Nescafe “all-from-powder” coffee machines. What is the point?! AA T3 has one too (although of the Douwe Egberts variety IIRC). Why are lounges happy to provide alcohol but can’t spare more than pennies for the marginal cost of a cup of coffee? They might find their alcohol spend drops if they provided a palatable coffee option…
No – it’s a bean to cup machine.
If you look carefully the beans go into the clear plastic box on the top. Perfect for Coffee snobs David!
Is it the caffeine causing you both to be awake before 5:00 am?
Which photo can you see the clear plastic box in? If the sideways-on one, I think you’re looking at the lampshade on the wall behind… The design of those buttons on the front mark it out as a “cr*p coffee” machine to me…
And no, I’m currently 7 hours ahead of GMT in Thailand, so wasn’t awake before 5am my time! Although I had been fuelled by a mug of “powder to cup” coffee from my Ibis Styles when I wrote the comment…
And it’s not so much “coffee snob” as “extensive coffee machine experience” – so far in 2020 I’ve had 59 hotel nights and visited 14 different airport lounges, so I’ve seen a good spread of the coffee machine market.
Coffee machines are the future, Lynn. Kettles are sad.
I’ve visited this lounge a few times in the last year.
Staff are brilliant. Friendly and welcoming every time.
The coffee machine, from memory, is Douwe Egberts. Sadly no bean-to-cup and was poor coffee.
I’m a big fan of the barista coffee bar in the Melbourne Qantas Business Domestic Lounge.
I do like this little lounge – early on a Summer’s morning in full sunshine, waitiing to board the 07.10 BA to LHR…..and then onwards to “wherever”. Beautiful way to start a holiday. However I wont be staying at the Marriott supermarket thing at the airport anytime soon (even at £50 a night). I would much prefer one of the two pub hotels in Ardersier which is £10 away by taxi each way. In fact we may even stay up there 2 nights before and hire a car as it’s so pretty up around these parts!
Thank you – it is a grand part of the world indeed. I won’t be staying in the hotel either – for a £10 taxi fare I can stay at home 🙂
Me too. Don’t forget to visit Fort George at the far side of Ardersier. Place of my birth ..in the days when it had a 2 bed maternity unit. Great Military museum and just a fabulous architectural achievement.
I love what we are doing with the names.
There’s only one David here who’s truly pre-eminent!
Visited here a while back but sadly had to grab a bacon roll to go as Inverness Airport hadn’t quite opened its fast track security at that point and time was tight!
Inverness doesn’t do FastTrack. Huge queue recently. I politely made my way to the front, flashed my boarding card which stated FastTrack, to be told ‘ we don’t do it’ oh, the embarrassment of having to walk back the length of the queue.( which was almost to the cafe at the other end of the terminal).
I think Michael is the chirpie chappie who keeps the lounge in order. Bright, cheerful and very helpful.
It’s a great wee lounge and certainly ‘does the business’
It does have Fast Track.
In theory, not in practice from my limited experience.
Well, you must be special! I’m a fairly FF from Inverness , have been silver/ gold for about 5 years, Often in the pointy end and never used Fasttrack as it’s not / never available.
A lovely little lounge. The staff are a delight.