Which? slams the state of independent UK airport lounges

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• NigelthePensioner says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:17

  The Which? report highlights exactly what is required. An unannounced assessment by an independent reviewer who is not an avgeek and therefore not prone to “lounge access at any price” syndrome.
  There does need to be a consistency of cleanliness and value for money along with comfort.
  If “we” continue to accept the need for prebooking by payment for “free” access and ever increasing entry fees for those without access cards to receive untidy, poor facilities, then what is the incentive for lounges to change?

  • Thywillbedone says:

    5 Dec5 December 09:27

    Agreed on all scores but as someone who no longer drinks lounges have limited ‘pull’ for me these days offering only – as they do – the opportunity to eat something I don’t want to eat for free.

• Mark says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:18

  Problem is the lounges are always full, Whilst they are they’re not going to spend any money on them or increase the offerings.

  both the lounges in T5 are dire, but the space restrictions don’t help.

  I use my PP for the lounges at Gatwick and always pre-book. It essentially costs me £1 to book the lounge as fast track is included.

• numpty says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:29

  Lounge reviews, like a hotel review or a restaurant review are based on the findings at the time. If the food is old, if the tables have not been cleaned and workmen are there during opening hours then that’s what you remember as a paying guest, or as a reviewer. The lounge providers like to sell the dream on their websites and if it doesn’t match the reality then it deserves to be criticised.

  Perhaps Which doing reviews provides a different perspective to that of frequent flyers (or frequent lounge visitors). T5 BA Galleries lounge; last time I was there I saw a mouse run across the floor – in a lounge with an open buffet, for me that’s a 1 out of 5 – if I had paid for access I’d want a refund and would leave – that would never be accepted in a restaurant.

  At a lot of colleagues/friends who might only visit a lounge once or twice a year are unimpressed with them (in UK) and don’t see the value in them (which is true if paying cash). They are upsold lounge access when booking airport parking etc. at the start of their holiday, they have much higher expectations than me (on my ‘free’ entry, if the lounge is quiet enough to accommodate me).

  £45 to get into a T5 lounge, probably better off going to one of the restaurants or bars and getting food made to order and brought to your table (luxury!). A long time ago I remember reading articles in which they could justify the cost to pay to access a lounge (food, drink, free wifi, showers, comfy seat), hard to do that now.

• The Original David says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:42

  The final photo in the article is Cathay Business, not First as captioned.

  • Rhys says:

    5 Dec5 December 08:56

    Oops so it is!

• Iain says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:44

  I see they didn’t make it to NCL which imho is fit for purpose so long as you manage to avoid the Alicante tracksuiters 🙂

• Bernard says:

  5 Dec5 December 08:53

  Astonishing that no 1 Gatwick north did even that. Experience there starts with often rude front desk staff, which progresses into a crowded lounge with filthy loos and wall to wall easyJet chavs.
  Good luck to no 1 if they can get away with charging so much for so little but it’s not a great experience.
  It is interesting how many lounges are now owned by the same company behind the rip off Covid 19 tests.
  At walk up price there are far better sit down dinning experiences at Gatwick.

• Andrew. says:

  5 Dec5 December 09:00

  It must have been the Aspire lounge at gate 12-14 rather than at gate 4 in Edinburgh.

  You have to leave the one at gate 4 by the side door and walk along the corridor to use the main loos. It also has a view of the car park, although like the BA lounge, you might get a pretty view of the control tower at night.

• Harry says:

  5 Dec5 December 09:01

  I don’t mean to be overly critical but personally I feel the Which ratings are much closer to reality than what are often quite generous HfP reviews. Airline lounges are more realistic but the third party ones tend to be far off the mark. For example, Plaza Premium T5 is often a complete mess, its jammed pack full of tables, and on a recent visit, I noticed the tables were barely 30cm apart near the buffet. The food was worse than a secondary school canteen and was refilled extremely slowly.

  I’m trying to work out why HfP lounge reviews are often so different to the experience I have personally, and I think it possibly comes down to these factors:
  -lounges are often overfilled due to credit card partnerships and the fact that premium leisure is roaring back after the pandemic
  -HfP often visit when the lounge has recently opened and the staff are making an effort, it’s also less busy at the outset
  -HfP often do research into the design ideas and sometimes interview the company executives, which possibly heightens positive impressions
  -HfP does not do many follow up visits, understandable considering the constraints of a small team, and don’t always get the school holidays or evening rush experience

  I do find the HfP reviews very useful and this website’s content is excellent. I don’t mean to be too harsh, but I really hope the reviews on this site can be more critical, perhaps even with a star rating based on consistent criteria. This would likely make a bigger difference to the standards across the industry.

  • Rhys says:

    5 Dec5 December 09:05

    One issue is that we started travelling very early on in covid and started re-writing our lounge reviews. Obviously in the past year travel has come roaring back so the serene scenes from 2021 are often no longer there. That should rebalance as we return.

    That said, I do think both Rob and I have lambasted the state of some lounges (including the PP/Club Aspire at T5).

    • Harry says:

      5 Dec5 December 09:11

      Yes, that’s definitely true. Also I do appreciate you’re doing this without charging for a magazine or paywall, so it’s not possible to go around every lounge periodically from a financial point of view.

      If I was to mention one thing that I feel is the biggest backslide in lounge standards, it would have be the outsourced catering. This includes the airline own brand lounges as well.

      • Rhys says:

        5 Dec5 December 09:26

        We do go to the London lounges more frequently than you think, and we do reflect our experiences in the comments here. But we don’t update past reviews because they are clearly dated.

        • Harry says:

          5 Dec5 December 09:35

          What about adding a section to the top of the review, something like ‘December 2023 UPDATED’ and then adding a couple of paragraphs on the current situation? It could still be released as a new item in the daily feed, I’m sure readers would really appreciate it.

          I know it’s difficult though, I appreciate the effort that is made to provide unbiased reviews.

  • Rob says:

    5 Dec5 December 09:08

    The subtlety you miss is that, due to the need to get photos without people in them, we only review independent lounges when they are empty. It’s often 5am or 10pm when we are there. If they are busy and we can’t get photos, we don’t do a review. It is self selecting. This is why our No1 review at T3 hasn’t been updated since 2015 and we have never reviewed some of the BA T5 lounges.

    • Damien says:

      5 Dec5 December 09:18

      I’m not sure that is a subtlety. Any lounge is by definition going to be better at a time when it’s empty. The time to review a lounge is at peak times because that is more representative. I’d much prefer an informative review than a skewed review with a staged photo – if you want a photo with no one in it use a stock photo, but please give me a trustworthy review!

    • AJA says:

      5 Dec5 December 10:02

      I’m with Damien here, I think you are much more likely to have a better experience if a lounge is empty. I think the experience of a lounge is consequently likely to be less positive if the lounge is crowded and the tables are dirty and not cleaned regularly. I find it interesting how lounge staff deal with crowded lounges, some are far better at it than others. But I also get why you visit lounges when you do.

      • Rhys says:

        5 Dec5 December 10:10

        It comes down to whether you think we should review lounges at their best or their worst. Which is more representative?

        • LittleNick says:

          5 Dec5 December 10:31

          Tend to have to agree with Damien/AJA, it’s more representative when we tend to fly during the day, arriving early morning or late evening to do a lounge review may not typically be representative of when HfP’s typically fly? Having said that I do not know typically when most Hfp’s tend to fly?
          As someone mentioned before, can’t you update reviews from during the day when you fly albeit without fresh photos if you don’t want people in it? Or provide a fresh review with old/stock photos? Would appreciate your honest thoughts when it is slightly busier than early morning/late evening

        • Rhys says:

          5 Dec5 December 10:37

          Most of my lounge reviews actually aren’t early morning/late evening (albeit some of Rob’s recent ones have been).

          To be honest, I prefer to fly mid day/early afternoon as I don’t want to be getting up at the crack of dawn or arriving at my destination extremely late. Exceptions to the rule but that tends to be how it falls if I have a choice.

          The only ‘real’ way to represent a lounge would be to spend all day, every day in it for a week and then note down peak / off-peak times. Obviously, we’re not doing that.

        • ken says:

          5 Dec5 December 10:40

          If they are so quiet at 5am or 10pm that you are able to take photos, then how can that possibly be representative ?

        • Rhys says:

          5 Dec5 December 10:44

          Rob was exaggerating. It’s exceptionally rare that we review a lounge that early/late.

        • Mikeact says:

          5 Dec5 December 11:52

          At their best ? Soon as they open ? At their worst ? 9am/9pm ?

        • Skywalker says:

          5 Dec5 December 14:15

          Both are representative. When empty, you then get to see the lounges are at their best, and see how the lounge staff and facilities cope when they are at their fullest or “worst”.

        • jjoohhnn says:

          5 Dec5 December 14:46

          The most representative would be when most people are using them? Presumably that would be when they are busy, rather than quiet.

        • AJA says:

          6 Dec6 December 09:22

          I think it would be interesting to review a lounge at or near peak usage. That’s when most issues are likely to occur. If the lounge is approaching capacity, the tables are cleared promptly, food and drink is plentiful / topped up frequently and passengers can find seats relatively easily then the lounge is well run. That’s what the lounge should be aiming to provide and the service provider should be doing anyway. Anything less is not well run.

          To use an aircraft analogy an early morning lounge review is like only reviewing economy when the plane is 80% empty. You’re not going to get a representative view of the aircraft in those circumstances.

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