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While British Airways has quite an impressive European route network it’s lounge network is less than stellar, and there are quite a few popular destinations around Europe where British Airways and oneworld don’t offer elites or premium cabin passengers a lounge to relax in before a flight.
When you’re charging the sort of premiums that British Airways charges for its (poor) short-haul Business Class cabin the lack of a lounge offering isn’t ideal….but it looks as if this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the airline.
British Airways has announced that, this summer, passengers traveling from the following European destinations will have access to third party lounges at the respective airports.
- Dalaman
- Heraklion
- Olbia
- Palermo
- Paphos
- Rhodes
- Split
- Thessaloniki
Carolina Martinoli, BA’s Director of Brand and Customer Experience, is quoted as saying:
“We know how important it is to our customers to have access to a lounge before they fly. We’ve expanded our partnerships so whether travelling for business or pleasure, more of our customers can now enjoy a calm lounge, wi-fi and complimentary food and drink when they fly with us this summer.”
British Airways hasn’t mentioned which third party lounges it will be using but it’s not unreasonable to guess that they use the same lounges as Priority Pass (where PP offers a lounge) and/or Lounge Buddy lounges.
Dalaman
- CIP Lounge Terminal 2
Heraklion
Olbia
Palermo
Paphos
Rhodes
- The Filoxenia Lounge*
Split
Thessaloniki
- Skyserv Manolis Andronikos Lounge
*This isn’t a Priority Pass lounge but it’s run by Swissport (BA uses Swissport lounges elsewhere) and it appears to be the only airside lounge in at Rhodes Airport so this is almost certainly the lounge BA will use.
**This lounge isn’t a member of any of the major lounge programs but appears to be the only lounge at the airport so seems a safe bet as the lounge BA will use.
Please note that I’m just attempting to make educated (hopefully!) guesses at which lounges BA will be using so don’t take the list I’ve provided to be 100% accurate.
Bottom Line
At first I thought BA was being a little cute when its press release said that the lounges will be “introduced for customers travelling throughout summer 2019” (why not for passengers traveling year round?)…..but then I realised that all of these destinations are seasonal so BA doesn’t fly to any of them outside of its summer season.
I suspect that the quality of these lounges will vary significantly and it’s unlikely that any of them will be world beaters….but they’ll all probably be a better option than sitting at the gate so this is a definite improvement for flyers.
