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Luton Airport to get two new lounges, but loses the Aspire lounge

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London Luton Airport is in dire need of additional lounge capacity, and it looks like it will be getting it next year.

No1 Lounges has announced it is taking over the existing Aspire Lounge as well as the former Clubrooms lounge, which has not re-opened since the pandemic. They will be rebranded as MyLounge and No1 Lounge respectively.

No1 Lounges is owned by Swissport and Collinson. These two companies also jointly own the Club Aspire brand, whilst Swissport wholly owns Aspire. Apparently No1 won a competitive tender for the contract, which means it presumably beat its 50% shareholder’s solo bid!

Clubrooms lounge Luton Airport

The Aspire Lounge was last refurbished in late 2020, so it seems odd that Collinson and Swissport have decided that it would be better off with another new look under a different brand.

Goodbye Aspire, hello MyLounge

The new MyLounge will take over the larger Aspire space, which has room for 155 guests. MyLounge is the ‘value’ brand from No1 and tends to feature a smaller selection of food and drink than you’d find in a No1 Lounge.

Given that Luton is a low-cost airport, it makes sense to open a larger space for MyLounge – although MyLounge isn’t exactly cheap these days if you pay to get in, priced at ‘from’ £30. Pre-pandemic you could buy access for £15 during promotions.

That said, Aspire (which is closer to No1 in terms of standards) never had any problems attracting custom and was often oversubscribed. When I tried to get in on Monday with my Priority Pass I was turned away.

Luton AIrport gets two new lounges
MyLounge Gatwick South

The new No1 Lounge will take over the former Clubrooms lounge which we reviewed in 2019 just after it opened. This is smaller, with capacity for 70 people, and has remained dormant since it closed.

The No1 Lounge is scheduled to open at the end of the year, with working starting any day now. It’s not clear how much of a refurbishment this will get given that the Clubrooms space is likely to still be in fairly good condition.

Work on MyLounge is due to begin after that and “should be ready” by summer 2024, although lounge projects are rarely on time due to the logistics of building airside. According to the press release, this includes a “complete refurbishment” so it is likely that the Aspire will close for several months before the MyLounge opens in its place.

If that’s the case, the lounge situation at Luton Airport is going to be very crowded in the first few months of next year. Only the 70-seat No1 Lounge will be open with about half the capacity of the existing Aspire lounge. On the upside, you should be able to pay the £6 reservation fee to guarantee a slot in the No1 Lounge via Priority Pass.

We will, of course, take a look at both on your behalf when they open.

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Category

General

Comments (34)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • johnny_c-l says:
    29 Sep29 September 07:14

    *London Luton Airport

  • Bagoly says:
    29 Sep29 September 07:36

    If doing the ?local dialect, should that not be “Lonon Luon” ?
    🙂

  • Chris W says:
    29 Sep29 September 07:59

    I always thought the Clubrooms there was weird. Wrong demographic and it was too exposed and in a too high traffic area – not very luxurious or private

    • TGLoyalty says:
      29 Sep29 September 19:42

      So not really a clubrooms at all maybe just a way to make sure it wasn’t on PP etc

      Personally I think paying £15 for the BHX one is well worth it.

  • Marty P says:
    29 Sep29 September 08:42

    I tried to get into the Aspire lounge with my priority pass last week and was turned away. It baffles me how you’re allowed to leave the lounge, go shopping and return to keep your place considering it is oversubscribed. Surely more revenue for the lounge with the constant churn of new people?

    • Rhys says:
      29 Sep29 September 09:12

      Do they let you do that?

      • Marty P says:
        29 Sep29 September 09:34

        Unfortunately yes, multiple people asked reception if they could pop out for a shopping trip and come back to the lounge. I joined the virtual queue and watched the lounge entrance in envy. Nothing mentioned on the T&C’s on Swissport site about leaving the lounge and coming back. However, hen and stag parties are banned and I saw a few groups in the Luton lounge.

    • r* says:
      29 Sep29 September 09:40

      Why? When you enter the lounge its access for 2 or 3 hours, not that youre trapped in there for 3 hours and not allowed to leave if you need to go get something.

      • Marty P says:
        29 Sep29 September 09:52

        The lounge is at capacity. People are getting turned away. Customers already fed and watered. I find that a bit selfish. Personally I would leave the lounge an hour before the flight departs to shop so others can use the lounge.

        • Ken says:
          29 Sep29 September 10:37

          Imagine you have paid £38 for access.

          I’d want to be able to pop out to the shops and wouldn’t give a toss about people who couldn’t get in using PP

        • Londonsteve says:
          29 Sep29 September 12:15

          They’ve paid, they got there before you. There’s zero obligation, legal or moral to move on until their time is up. If you’re paid good money to enter a lounge the last thing you want to do is end up having to wait in the public areas because you left too early and now cannot return.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          29 Sep29 September 19:53

          It’s a lounge it’s not about being fed and watered! Literally no lounge ever is single entry only.

    • Jess says:
      29 Sep29 September 12:31

      The T&Cs need to be updated to restrict this kind of behaviour. That way more people can enter and enjoy the service they pay for at the lounge… and will know to leave sufficient time for shopping before or after visiting!

      • His Holyness says:
        29 Sep29 September 13:03

        Pay the full whack and you’ll get in everytime.

      • ken says:
        29 Sep29 September 13:06

        “restrict this kind of behaviour”

        So you can’t even stretch you legs for 15 minutes ?

        The problem is not perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour, but Priority Pass / Credit cards over promising on what can be delivered.

    • jj says:
      29 Sep29 September 14:46

      “It baffles me how you’re allowed to leave the lounge, go shopping and return to keep your place”

      I’m glad you weren’t employed as Lounge Dragon the day I spilled a full cup of coffee down my white shirt in the CCR…I’d have been permanently exited before I’d even sniffed the LPGS.

  • gerjomarty says:
    29 Sep29 September 09:24

    Apologies for the slighty OT comment, but after spending 50 minutes waiting for a pitiful number of eGates compared to pasengers at Luton recently, I’d rather not go back for non-CTA flights if I could help it.

    • Londonsteve says:
      29 Sep29 September 11:30

      Arrival immigration at Luton has been a disaster since the boom in low cost flights from CEE started in 2004. I cannot remember a single occasion in about 100 arrivals when I didn’t experience a fairly hefty queue, at its worst it would snake out of the building and back towards an aircraft. The queue was typically 20-30 minutes but anything up to an hour was not unusual.

      • Amy C says:
        29 Sep29 September 12:34

        That’s really strange as I have never once had a problem there and have flown many times form luton as it’s my nearest airport. Never had an issue with long security on departure either. Couldn’t get into the lounge in July this year though which did boil my blood a bit.

        • Londonsteve says:
          29 Sep29 September 13:50

          I’ve never once had a problem there either. Just a routinely long wait for immigration on arrival. It’s not a problem, both I and apparently management at LTN see it as ‘business as usual’. If your experiences with immigration are better than mine it could be because you routinely take a flight that arrives at a sweet spot in the timetable when there are few other incoming flights. I didn’t mention security at all, I’ve never had an usually long wait for security which historically has always been well staffed and is quite swift.

          • Mike says:
            29 Sep29 September 15:50

            To be fair to Luton, and I have little urge to be fair to airports when they underperform, immigration is the responsibility of BF. Airports do meet with BF but they can’t force them to do anything (they may not even agree on the lengths of queues, BF metrics vs those captured internally e.g. the airport may have queue counting systems based on Bluetooth, not good, or something using vision systems, better).

          • Londonsteve says:
            29 Sep29 September 17:21

            BF’s ability to provide immigration services has been historically hampered by Luton’s provision of a small hall. They could extend or alter the facility but historically they chose not to. Management will have considered doing so as a cost, as opposed to seeing the bigger picture whereby if immigration is swift and comfortable passengers are more likely to use the airport again.

          • Amy C says:
            29 Sep29 September 17:30

            I know you didn’t mention security but I did as an aside as many have negatively mentioned it in past. And no, all my flights have been very randomly timed arrivals, nothing routine. I don’t recall actually facing any queue at all.

  • r* says:
    29 Sep29 September 09:43

    No1 lounges? There goes the small remaining chance of getting in with a (non)priority pass lol.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    29 Sep29 September 09:51

    There’s some positive signs coming from the worst lounge in the world (Aspire NCL) when I was there last night I could see evidence of building work next to the wall which separated the lounge from the old BA lounge and the sign said phase 1 would be complete by December.

    So it looks like they’re expanding into the space that used to be occupied by BA. Hopefully expanding the space may make this nasty lounge a bit more tolerable.

    On the bad side you now have to ask for drinks at the bar one at a time, you can’t ask for multiples to save queuing many times.

  • Londonsteve says:
    29 Sep29 September 11:37

    The idea of arriving early at LTN in order to use a payable lounge brings me out in a cold sweat. I always used to time my arrival to enable a comfortable transit (i.e. not stressed) and after security I went straight to the boarding gate where boarding was about to begin. 50-60 minutes before departure when carrying only hand luggage was optimal. ‘Dwell time’ zero. A tip is to be one of the last to board as passengers are ‘kettled’ in a staircase awaiting boarding of the aircraft to commence, sometimes for up to 30 minutes. You want to board when you can see the queues for the stairs at the plane are depleting in length. Book an aisle seat at the front or rear of the aircraft to make the boarding process comfortable.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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