Review: British Airways Lounge Rome Fiumicino (Terminal 3)

This is the TFM British Airways Lounge Rome review.

On a recent trip to Southeast Asia, my routing took me via Rome Fiumicino Airport where I spent a little bit of time in the British Airways Lounge. This is what the lounge was like on this particular visit.

Location & opening hours

British Airways operates out of Terminal 3 at Rome Fiumicino so, unsurprisingly, that’s where you’ll find its lounge. Specifically, it’s located after security, on the mezzanine level of the non-Schengen section of the terminal.

The lounge is well signposted. Head in the direction of the E gates, take the escalator up one level where indicated, and you should see the British Airways Lounge at one end of the mezzanine level (next to the Plaza Premium lounge).

Opening hours are simple: 05:15 to 20:30 daily.

Access

The following passengers can access this lounge:

• Oneworld Emerald status holders + 1 guest*
• Oneworld Sapphire status holders + 1 guest*
• British Airways & Cathay Pacific First Class passengers + 1 guest
• British Airways & Cathay Pacific Business Class passengers

Guests must also be traveling on a flight operated and marketed by a Oneworld carrier.

See this page for full specifics of access via elite status or cabin of travel.

*Must be traveling with British Airways or Cathay Pacific

The lounge

The British Airways lounge in Rome covers ~4,950 sq ft (~460 sq m) and it was one of the very first lounges (possibly the first lounge) to be refreshed in the “new” British Airways lounge style.

With that in mind, the first part of the lounge that you walk into is underwhelming.

There’s a large central, oval bar which is occasionally manned (often not) and while there are stools at the bar for guests to use, it feels like an uninviting spot to spend any time.

To date, I have never seen anyone actually sitting at the bar (things may be different during very busy times).

On the other side of the bar is where the lounge food is to be found (I’ll come on to that in a separate section), and to the immediate left and right of the bar you’ll find some cafeteria-style seating, a few hard armchairs, and some workstations.

This all feels very bleak and sterile. There’s no natural light anywhere in this area, and it’s a long way away from what you may be expecting if you’ve read some of the press releases which describe BA’s new(ish) lounge concept.

Fortunately, if you move past here and further into the lounge, things get better.

Here, there’s an abundance of natural light coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows which look out over the airport apron, and the cafeteria feel is swapped for a more plush and relaxed feel with armchairs and padded wall seating.

This is much more like what BA’s press releases have been saying the lounge “look” is like.

The best area to sit is probably in the far corner of the lounge where the two walls of glass meet.

During daylight hours, this space is light and bright and, if you’re into that kind of stuff, you’ll often get quite a good view of aircraft taking off from here.

All the seats here have good access to power outlets with the tables offering outlets to guests on either side with one seat getting access to two USB-A ports and a British-style 3-pin outlet, and the other getting access to two USB-A ports and a Euro-style 2-pin outlet.

And there’s equally good access to power and USB ports if you’re sitting in the seats up against the lounge wall.

Unfortunately, these outlets and USB-ports are about as reliable as a Boeing quality control inspector and on my last visit, quite a few were not working – check them before you sit down or you may find yourself having to pack up all your belongings and moving seats if you need to charge a device.

Adjacent to this more relaxed part of the lounge is a more work-oriented area.

Here, there’s a central communal table with power outlets and USB ports down the middle.

And there are a few work stations and stools up against one of the walls dividing this work area from the more relaxed part of the lounge.

To say that this part of the lounge (the armchairs and the work area) is noticeably different from the area of the lounge you see when you first walk in would be a big understatement.

Moving from one section to the other feels like moving from a mid-level hospital cafeteria to a genuinely nice-looking airport lounge.

Unfortunately, however, it’s not all good news here.

Aside from the non-functioning power outlets/USB ports, the lounge is showing its age (8 years old) in other ways as well – the wooden parts of the furniture are starting to look worn and whoever chose the fabric for the seating obviously didn’t take ease of cleaning into consideration because some of the seats look terrible.

I have no idea how whoever designed this lounge (and whoever signed off on it) didn’t see this coming as most frequent flyers would have seen this coming a mile away. I just hope the same fabrics aren’t being used in all the other “new concept” lounges.

Finally, for this section, I should note that not only does this lounge not have access to any showers, it doesn’t even have its own washrooms, so guests have to use the Terminal 3 mezzanine floor washrooms a short walk outside the lounge.

Food & drinks

At the time of this visit, the lunch/dinner buffet was on offer. This is what it looked like:

Cold buffet

• Mixed salad items:
  • Iceberg lettuce
  • Tomatoes
  • Olives
  • Orange segments
• Spelt with asparagus cream, confit tomatoes and tuna
• Roasted turkey slices
• Spianata Romana (a traditional flat-pressed cured salami from the Lazio region)
• Edam cheese
• Mini mozzarella balls with basil

Hot items

• Bolognese lasagna
• Lentil oup
• Beef meatballs with tomato and basil
• Roast potatoes

Dessert items

• Mini babà (Italian bite-sized, yeast-risen small cake)
• Sicilian cannoli
• Chocolate cream puffs
• Assorted dry pastries

Aside from whatever buffet is being served, the lounge also offers a variety of whole fruit (mostly apples and satsumas).

On paper that list of food items seems more than reasonable, but in practice, none of it looked particularly appetizing and the hot items were not replaced with any worthwhile frequency (there was nothing more than a few scraps left for the hour that I was in the lounge).

As far as the drink selection goes, this is where things get a little confusing, because it’s not really obvious if you’re meant to be serving yourself or if you’re meant to wait for a member of the lounge staff to appear and serve you.

Clearly, when it comes to using the coffee machine, that’s something you wait for a staff member to do for you.

The bottled beers which are behind the bar don’t feel like a self-serve option.

And, presumably, if you want one of the cocktails off this list of drinks that are offered, that’s something you need a staff member for as well.

But how about these drinks on the bar itself? There are glasses on the bar, so are these self-serve or do you need to wait for a member of lounge staff to pour them for you?

If I was to guess, I’d say that all the drinks are meant to be poured by the lounge staff, but I’d be a lot more certain about this had the bar not been unmanned for large periods of time during my visit.

Overall, there’s nothing noteworthy about the food and drinks selection in this lounge and if I had to sum up the offering in a single word, “forgettable” or “uninviting” would probably do the job for me.

A note on WiFi

On this particular visit, the WiFi was slow. In fact, it was so slow that I decided to do a speed test to see what the download/upload speeds were.

A few minutes later, this was the download speed:

I have no idea how often the WiFi behaves this way, but keep in mind that it’s possible to see speeds as low as these in this lounge.

In summary

So how do I sum this lounge up? Well, the dining area feels like a very average (and dingy) cafeteria (bland, soulless and devoid of design). The seating area is the exact opposite with plenty of natural light, good views, nicely designed armchairs and tables with great access to power. It’s just a shame that no one thought to cover the seats with a material which can be cleaned. As for the food and drinks, well, they’re forgettable.

If you’re visiting hoping for a shower and a nice meal in pleasant surroundings regardless of where you sit, this lounge will disappoint. If all you want is somewhere to relax or somewhere to work and you can get a seat in the light-filled seating area, you’ll probably have no issues at all … except perhaps with the stained seats.

Related: Plaza Premium First Lounge Rome review