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

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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.

oneworld opens its first dedicated airport lounge in Seoul

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.

oneworld opens its first dedicated airport lounge in Seoul

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.

oneworld opens its first dedicated airport lounge in Seoul

(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.

oneworld opens its first dedicated airport lounge in Seoul

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.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (October 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 1,500 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.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

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 £290 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A good package, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

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

Comments (36)

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

  • Tony says:

    The converted cafe at AMS, a short walk from the usual BA gates, is brilliant.

  • twoclicks says:

    I was in the ICN OW lounge a couple of weeks ago, apparently before it’s official opening. The airport was unbelievably busy with only two lanes of security/passport control open so despite being first at the check in desk at 3 hours before the flight, it took me an hour to reach the lounge. The showers are good but not amazing. There are luggage lockers (no instructions visible anywhere, but staff helped) and as it was evening it seemed like the tea had been put away. However, the food was impressive, the space is well designed and looks beautiful and the cocktails made to order by the bartender were exceptional. I wasn’t ordering off the list, but asking for bespoke creations. Overall the lounge is really excellent, not quite CX HKG or LHRT3 good but one of the better OW lounges round the world — well worth a review if someone is going to ICN.

  • Dominic says:

    As a regular visitor to ICN (usually with QR, sometimes AY) this is very welcome. The Asiana lounge which was the previous option (other than some pay-per-use ones) is pretty plain, has literally the exact same food options every time, and mainly seems to serve as a place for LG to advertise their (admittedly very good) TVs!

    Definitely concur with twoclicks – the trick is to get there before 8pm when four security lanes drop down to two. Given my flight is usually around midnight, this is very early, but I’d rather spend an extra hour in a lounge rather than standing in a line….

    • PeteM says:

      The security situation is really bizarre and unusual for Korea – wonder what’s going on as it really reflects super badly on ICN?

  • vlcnc says:

    I was surprised to learn that Cathay doesn’t have their own lounge there tbh. Also Qatar Airways seem to focus on Seoul a lot, so I thought they might have a small one too. Definitely can see it getting crowded if there are a lot of takeoffs at the sametime from mutliple oneworld airlines.

  • sigma421 says:

    The bar sounds like quite an upgrade. As I recall, the last time I was through in July, the Asiana lounge had one bottle of white wine I’d have been annoyed to pay more than £7 for in Tesco and that was it.

  • Michael C says:

    Boo!
    No “maybe the BA flight will be back by next spring” rumours!!!

    • Bernard says:

      BA doesn’t have the fleet spare for that, or Bangkok (grotesquely uncommercial as a route anyway).
      You do wonder why it bothers with Hong Kong so much, given the dire straits Hong Kong is in (now a it’s just another CCP city and innovation and innovators have left for elsewhere).

      • G says:

        Still where the majority of Chinese businesses (a country with more GDP than Germany Japan and UK combined) are listed.

        Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong can all support, despite the Russian-airspace restrictions because of the high volume business demand and leisure. The market for just isn’t there yet. I wish it were.

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