Normality returns? The reopening of airline lounges

As the UK reopened it’s economy from the mid-Spring after many months of time in and out of lockdowns, we’ve seen the cultural, food and drink sectors flourish again. People are also beginning to travel internationally again, even if the rules are particularly confusing regarding testing and the now infamous traffic light hokey-cokey every 3 weeks. One area that has been lagging, though, is the reopening of lounges at UK airports. In this article, I’ll try to give you the lowdown on the current situation in the UK.

British Airways

The UK flag carrier, British Airways, closed all its lounges in March 2020 alongside the national lockdown legislation. It’s Heathrow Business lounge opened again in early Summer 2020 but closed from November, a few weeks after we visited before our trip to Scotland. Now, British Airways has reopened:

• Heathrow T5:

  • First Class (Concorde Room, Concorde Terrace)

  • Galleries Club South, North and Arrivals

• Heathrow T3 Galleries Club

• Aberdeen

• Belfast

• Edinburgh

• Glasgow

• Jersey (third party)

The following locations have closed permanently:

• Manchester

• Newcastle

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Other oneworld airlines

Mostly centred around Heathrow Terminal 3 and 4, it’s quite a sorry state at the moment. American Airlines and Cathay Pacific (sadly) have made no announcement on timelines for reopening their lounges. Malaysia Airlines and Qatar Airways lounges are based in Terminal 4 which is currently the designated “red list” terminal - it seems unlikely these will reopen any time soon as demand for terminal space is unlikely to require the terminal to reopen fully. On one final positive step, Qantas are being very ambitious in their lounge reopening by Christmas 2021! I say ambitious as its dependent on Australian border reopening to some degree or the end of hotel quarantine - which seems very unlikely since the Australian Government have not announced anything around a December timeline.

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Virgin Atlantic, Star Alliance and SkyTeam

After almost 18 months of closure, Virgin Atlantic began to welcome back passengers to their amazing Clubhouse at Terminal 3 - alongside their joint venture and shareholder Delta Air Lines. I for one am looking forward to long-haul travel booked in Spring 2022 when I will hopefully get to experience this world class lounge for the first time.

Lufthansa’s lounge at Heathrow has been a stalwart opening similarly to British Airways throughout the pandemic. As of September, Singapore Airlines have reopened their T2 Heathrow lounge but with the caveat you require a negative PCR test generated 72h prior to admission due to mixing with Singapore-departing passengers. This is despite the SIA lounge being open to Star Alliance passengers who may not require a PCR to fly to their destination, unfortunately. Air Canada and United’s lounges remain closed - although I could foresee AC’s status changing soon with their international borders reopening and moving to the UK’s quarantine free “green list”.

SkyTeam’s combined lounge, similar to Qatar and Malaysian, is based out of Terminal 4 and thus is unable to reopen. SkyTeam members, most likely Air France-KLM for European travel, are redirected to third party lounges.

If there’s any updates over the coming months, I’ll likely update this article to keep you informed.