How will airport lounges operate in the future? A real life example from the Aspire lounge in Zurich

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• Kip says:

  17 May17 May 11:35

  Presumably if all the amenities of business class are not available then you would expect to see a reduction of fares? Effectively all you’re paying for is a better seat.

  • John says:

    17 May17 May 13:35

    Or for the same seat, in Rob’s beloved club europe

  • Peter K says:

    17 May17 May 17:44

    But surely fares are based on what someone is willing to pay, not what it costs to provide?

• Andrew says:

  17 May17 May 11:58

  I would imagine that BA will keep their lounges closed for as long as possible, citing social distancing issues, but of course saving them money.

  • Lady London says:

    17 May17 May 12:29

    Whatever makes you think British Airways that moneygrubbing corner-cutting employee-exploiting company would do that?

• AJA says:

  17 May17 May 13:10

  I disagree with Rob that BA will cull it’s number of shiny card holders to reduce passenger numbers in their lounges. What I see happening instead is restricting lounge access to business class passengers only but enhancing benefits for shiny card holders in some other way (eg more bonus Avios) to incentivise people to attain / retain status.

  I think the era of buying the cheapest economy ticket and getting access to the lounge via your status is over. You may still get access if you buy a fully flexible economy ticket.

  I think BA will need to extend status purely because every other alliance has done so and it will want its members to fly again. I think BA is being extremely cautious in its approach and will do the minimum it can get away with without risking passengers defecting to other airline alliances.

  • John says:

    17 May17 May 13:41

    Your post is somewhat self-contradictory. BA needs to extend status to get its members to fly again, but there won’t be any benefits from having status?

    If status only gets you extra avios, then I won’t bother. Spending £1000 on a “TP run” to get 100000 extra avios is hardly worth it

    It would need to be a oneworld-wide agreement if they were going to remove lounge access, but all alliances would need to do it otherwise they would lose customers to the ones which didn’t.

    • AJA says:

      17 May17 May 13:54

      I don’t know what they will actually do. I wish I did. I wasn’t saying that the extra Avios is what they will offer, it was more as an example of something BA might do. As for OW agreement I think that is happening in the background. I wouldn’t rule anything out, including culling the numbers, but I just don’t think they will. It’s my opinion. You don’t have to agree and I might be totally wrong in my assessment, but equally so might Rob.

    • Optimus Prime says:

      17 May17 May 15:50

      They could decide to remove lounge access from those travelling on Avios tickets if they don’t have status. Isn’t Qatar doing something similar already?

  • Rob says:

    17 May17 May 14:54

    If I was BA I might be willing to take the risk that I am running a big enough monopoly not to be too concerned about what a few thousand ex-status holders will do if I don’t extend their card.

    Remember that this might not even do the job. Gold’s will only drop to Silver and so retain access – this keeps the Club lounges full whilst emptying the First lounge (which is effectively the Gold lounge). Logically, Gold members should be rolled over – to keep them to Galleries First – whilst Silvers should be dropped to Bronze to empty out Galleries Club.

    Moving all the Gatwick flights to Heathrow is a little stupid, to the extent that you are leaving a huge lounge complex – in fact a whole terminal – virtually empty whilst T5 will remain at full capacity. Such is the need to protect Heathrow slots.

    • Andrew says:

      17 May17 May 15:51

      But remember there’s nothing that sates a soft landing is policy on the website, so it’s more a practice rather than a policy and BA could stop that practice whenever they want and no one could complain.

      • Josh says:

        17 May17 May 17:36

        True – Don’t give them ideas 😂

        • Rob says:

          17 May17 May 17:50

          ….. like Marriott!

• Mike White says:

  17 May17 May 13:54

  I think this is all crazy and a modicum of common sense and rowing back will be needed at some point when face can be saved. The current death rate for under-60s In UK is 0.0049%, which, if I can try to put into some perspective, it is the same probability that the aircraft will suffer an engine failure on a transatlantic flight. So hardly any. Put simply, if it is safe to fly then it is safe to fly. IF you are under 60. For those over 60 then the risk is very different at a whopping 0.29%. Combined it is 0.056% I think it won’t be long until the proverbial coffee is smelled and this whole thing is put to bed. Unfortunately, at the cost of a large-scale disruption to the world’s mobility and the aviation industry.

  • memesweeper says:

    17 May17 May 15:51

    The low rates are because we had/have a lockdown/social distancing. And the low rates still mean a > 50% increase in the death rate in recent weeks.

    Travelling doesn’t much increase the traveller’s risk. However, lots of travelling significantly increases a society’s risk. Looking at this from any individual’s standpoint then, outside of high risk groups, personal adherence to lockdown/distancing is going to insignificantly affect your chances of getting ill or dying. However, everyone’s else’s behaviour is going to make a huge difference to all of us.

    • Andsman says:

      17 May17 May 16:30

      In one word, no.

  • Callum says:

    18 May18 May 05:16

    1. I would love to see where you get those figures from given they bear no resemblance whatsoever to any official statistics I can find.

    2. One of the perks of modern living is that we can also worry about things that don’t result in death. If you pay attention to what government does, you’ll notice that the vast majority of what they do doesn’t involve trying to prevent death. In fact, you’ll probably find the vast majority of your energy is spent improving your life as opposed to staying alive.

    3. Although it may frustrate you to no end, this post is the perfect example of why REAL experts take no notice of self-appointed armchair experts posting online. Though, given people like yourself are increasingly fooling the insanely gullible public and getting into powerful positions, it’s a disturbing thought that this may not be the case for the foreseeable future.

    • Joe says:

      18 May18 May 11:31

      Mike’s post is not out of whack with what experts are increasingly saying. Just do a few minutes of research on what the estimated Infection Fatality Rate (not Case Fatality Rate) is by age group and you’ll come to similar numbers. ie <1% across age groups, with a massive skew towards 0.1% or lower in those <50 without preexisting conditions. The more we test the more evident this becomes. Look at the case studies of prisons in the US or dorms in Singapore.

      The reality is that policy is now being driven by politics and not experts. I totally understand the fear – the media has not helped at all in how they have presented this. And few governments have shown true leadership but have caved to fear. We should all take some sensible precautions in life as a result of this to shield those who are vulnerable. But – the faster society can return to near normal the faster we'll stem off the inevitable second order effects of what is happening now. Continuing to perpetuate fear has already started killing people by making them avoid hospitals.

• Andsman says:

  17 May17 May 16:32

  This two person requirement at a table creates problems for families. It’s a useful article. Shame the offerings are always going to be less.

  • memesweeper says:

    17 May17 May 17:17

    If you’re in a family group > 2, then the two person requirement at a table creates greater risks and problems for everyone in the lounge!

• Chrisasaurus says:

  17 May17 May 17:35

  Interesting that the cost is lowered, I would have thought if anything the new arrangements would be more costly to provide, per pax?

  • Lady London says:

    18 May18 May 14:14

    Well…. their costs of providing might always have allowed this door price, just maybe previouslty they could get away with charging a lot more!

    am guessing the above so fae as their marginal costs are concerned. as regards their fixed costs I am not sure what they pay airports, what portion is fixed rent, is there a % of turnover cost paid to airport as well, etc.

• r* says:

  18 May18 May 10:09

  Iirc, the zurich lounge only served hot food for a couple of hours at early lunch and dinner before the virus, outside of that they only had a few cold options.

• Jason Hindle says:

  19 May19 May 06:44

  Surprised the cost is lower. I had assumed both airport lounges and restaurants would simply decrease demand (maintaining social distance) by increasing cost (maintaining some semblance of profitability).

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