Review: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, London Heathrow Airport
Located adjacent to the Singapore Airlines SilverKris lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 2B is the Maple Leaf Lounge of Air Canada. Often cited as one of the better Star Alliance lounges at Heathrow in the frequent flyer community, is it really that good?
Access
Passengers travelling on the same day on Air Canada or Star Alliance partners in Business or First Class can visit the London Maple Leaf Lounge. Star Alliance Gold members can also visit, including those with Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Gold and PPS Club.
If you are travelling from Terminal 2A, where most short haul narrow body flights to Europe operate from, you can also use these lounges by following the directions on this article here. Just ensure you have a 10-15 minutes buffer to get back to the A Gates terminal.
You will be asked for your Vaccination Certificate or Negative Covid-19 Test result to gain entrance with the Lounge Staff being very strict on checking. One American passenger got extremely angry about this for some reason… For comparison, the Singapore Airlines Lounge in March 2022 was lax around checking vaccination certificates - you can read that lounge review here.
Design and seating
The lounge heavily leans on recreating the natural image Canada is known for with heavy use of light coloured woods with splashes of Air Canada red splashed across the space. It's a classy look that is easy on the eye - particularly the blink and you'll miss it engraved Maple Leaf logo near the entrance.
Air Canada has one benefit over the Singapore Airlines' Lounge next door in that it feels a lot more open. Despite windows and ceilings being the same height, there are fewer divisions within the lounge itself - at least for the primary seating area. This creates an open design and, on this unfamiliarly glorious day, the Air Canada Lounge felt a lot more bright and airy compared to Singapore Airlines' Lounge.
Seating is comprised of three types:
Armchairs along the windows
Bench-style seating on the elevated section on the opposite wall
Lounger seats with space to kick your feet back.
After arrival, we set down at the benches as the lounge was busy with Air Canada passenger which were very uncomfortable. Thankfully, the Toronto flight was departing soon after and we opted to settle at the lounger seats at the far end.
Those looking for a rest between connecting flights, you can go to the relaxation area behind the lounger seats. These feature loungers, again, but have a private television and are quite dark so you could probably get a bit of sleep here. That being said they feel a bit pointless because they are open to the lounge with no curtain and provide no privacy which is probably what you don't want when you're relaxing.
Towards the lounge entrance is an office space which is adequately separated from the main space providing greater privacy. It's a pretty normal offering with a long conference-style table with seats for multiple people to sit at (or one loud businessperson to shout at their video call from). Printer facilities are available, which is always welcome when you need to print documents at the last minute for verification at your destination.
And for the avgeeks out there, don’t forget to take a look at the beautiful Air Canada plane model at the rear of this space too.
Food and drink
We were in the lounge from around 09h30 to 11h15 which meant we covered both the breakfast and lunch offerings. The lounge offers a combined buffet and bar alongside a very small dining area if you prefer more formal table seating. This area takes a slightly different look from the rest of the lounge, swapping sunlight and light woods for dark marble cladding and red highlights which creates a different feel for the section.
The bar offers an extensive selection of alcohol, including the rather random Chinese Liquor but also the excellent Tanqueray Gin.
Most frequent flyers commend the lounge for their coffee offering since there is both self-serve and Barista-served coffee. While the Barista-made coffee we had was certainly better than the self-serve machine, and consequently that offered at the Singapore and United lounges, it was not excellent or on a par with many regular high street coffee chains be it Caffe Nero or Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. This may vary depending on who you get on that specific day but I personally felt that it wasn't as good as many observers online note.
Breakfast was an extremely standard offering with the usual combination of Full English Breakfast options like sausages and a poor attempt at scrambled egg (which I am sure was powdered) as well as Continental options including cheese and pastries. For this reason, I would always opt for the Singapore Airlines Lounge will the far tastier Nasi Lemak (but I prefer Asian food in general so I may be a little biased). I feel the lounge is maybe missing a trick from embracing its Canadian-ness by not having a waffle machine and maple syrup - this would be a real breakfast winner in my books!
I am happy to report that the lunch offering was a lot better than that at breakfast. During our visit options included a Cheese & Garlic Pasta that looked bland but was actually quite flavourful as well as a Beef Goulash that had been slow cooked for a tender taste when eating while maintaining a great taste. If you've got a longer layover or arrive early then it is worth it to visit all the lounges in Terminal 2B to get a variety of tastes during your lounge hopping.
Believe me…it tastes better than it looks!
Amenities and other bits
As the Singapore Airlines' Lounge showers are still closed, head across to the Air Canada Lounge to freshen up as they are open. It feels a bit like a poor excuse to still blame Covid-19 for not opening up the showers at the SilverKris Lounge rather than the true reason being cost cutting. The shower rooms are private, featuring a toilet, wash basin and shower with unbranded shower gel, shampoo and conditioner but no body moisturiser. Disposable toothbrushes and razors are available although note the shaving cream has a really odd, indescribably bad smell to it - so avoid it if you can. To use the shower rooms, just ask for a key at the front desk. I didn't as the room was just open when I went past and ended up having a staff member almost walk in.
Dedicated toilets are also available in a separate space just a couple of steps away and are very standard for a lounge.
I will note that around the time of the departing Air Canada flight the lounge was a little messy with cans or glasses left all over the place. While this is the fault of passengers travelling, in the private lounger area there were a few cans that were left on the floor throughout our lengthy visit which isn't acceptable. This was in spite of there being a cleaner walking around quite constantly sweeping up which suggests that more attention to detail needs to be made by the staff.
Finally, Wi-Fi was poor at this lounge. When the lounge emptied out I could only get around 1.5 Mbps up and 0.75 Mbps down which is atrocious - which is made worse by the fact that the United and Singapore Lounges get around 100 Mbps up/down even though it is provided by the same supplier, Virgin Media. I did manage to join a Google Meet work call with video turned off and it ran okay, but accessing anything like Google Docs was slow in loading up. If you're looking to work, take a look elsewhere for a better Wi-Fi experience.
Conclusion
The Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 2 is not disappointing but it is not that much better than the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge that many seem to suggest or overhype. It's a good space to relax in with a decent lunch offering and an excellent bright design but they really need to up their game when it comes to connectivity which is undeniably poor. Coffee is better here but for a superior caffeine fix spend a few pounds at the Caffe Nero a couple minutes walk away. I would return again but I would probably opt for the Singapore Airlines or United Lounges as my first choices if available on the day of departures. Maybe I have just been spoiled from my experience at Terminal 3 at the excellent Cathay Pacific First Class and American Express Centurion Lounges which tainted this experience…
What did you think of the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at London Heathrow? Comment below to let us know!
