The oneworld alliance opens its first airport lounge in Seoul (although BA doesn’t fly there)

The oneworld airline alliance, which includes British Airways amongst its members, has finally opened its first ‘official’ oneworld-branded airport lounge, at Seoul Incheon.

This is the culmination of a long process. oneworld lounges were announced pre-covid but plans for the first one to open in Moscow fell through for obvious reasons.

Even now, this lounge may be a bit of a compromise in terms of size.

But first, before someone asks in the comments, we should answer the burning question:

Isn’t there already a oneworld lounge in Los Angeles?

On paper, yes. There is a oneworld-branded airport lounge in Los Angeles. It opened back in 2014 as we covered here.

However, this is really a Qantas lounge, I believe, and is managed by them. The oneworld branding is there, I assume, to make it easier for flyers with other airlines to know where to go.

The Seoul lounge is owned by oneworld directly. Management has been outsourced to Swissport via its Aspire subsidiary.

The new Seoul lounge is a conversion

It’s not just hotels that like to take an existing facility and rebrand it.

The oneworld lounge in Seoul used to be the JJ Lounge, built by Jeju Air. This space apparently closed during the pandemic. All of the fixtures and fittings look brand new, however, if you look at the images here.

Whilst using an existing lounge space obviously has its advantages, the lounge feels smaller than I believe oneworld would have wanted.

It is 555 square metres with capacity for just 148 people. Despite this, it has to handle passengers for seven oneworld airlines: American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways and SriLankan Airlines.

(British Airways no longer flies to Seoul. It is a route which has come and gone over the years, but it never seems to attract enough premium traffic to stick around.)

Despite the modest size, it does seem to have packed in a lot, including showers.

Who can access the oneworld lounge?

Standard oneworld rules apply. You can get in if you are flying in Business Class or First Class on one of the airlines above, or if you have Emerald or Sapphire status with any oneworld airline and flying oneworld Economy.

This means that a British Airways Executive Club Silver or Gold member could still get in if flying, say, in Economy on Finnair.

There is no dedicated First Class / Emerald area. It is a single shared space.

Is Amsterdam next?

There have been constant rumours that the British Airways and Aspire lounges at Amsterdam Schiphol, currenly being knocked together into one large space, will reopen as a oneworld lounge.

The fact that Aspire is managing the Seoul lounge for oneworld implies a good relationship between the two. Aspire was already managing the British Airways lounge on behalf of the airline.

We need to see if this comes to pass. Progress on the Amsterdam refurbishment appears glacial, with passengers being redirected to a converted cafe in the terminal.

You can find opening hours for the Seoul lounge on the oneworld website here. You will find it in Terminal 1, near gate 28.

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How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (April 2024)

Here are the four options to get FREE airport lounge access via a UK credit card.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Eurostar, Lufthansa and Delta Air Lines lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum instead.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with four free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here.

Additional lounge visits are charged at £24.  You get four more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free Priority Pass card, allowing you access to the Priority Pass network.  Guests are charged at £24 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.