Lounge Lizard

One of the advantages of doing a lot of business travel over the years is membership of airline alliances.  I'm in two, probably the biggest in the business - those of British Airways (called the oneworld Alliance) and Lufthansa (a.k.a. the Star Alliance).  Aside from a huge range of destinations, courtesy of their partner airlines, that make it easy for our travel people to get the best bookings, I also get to collect air-miles....thousands of them.  Like all such schemes you have an entry level, usually identified by a membership card in blue, then you progress through silver and gold levels, each with increased benefits - the Star Alliance has a top level that provides a black card and chauffeur driven limo pick-up to/from the aircraft door.  Over the years I've got all the way to gold status with BA and back down to blue (when I moved to Warsaw I pretty much stopped using them due to the lack of BA flights from there: a single destination, London Heathrow), and have made silver for the past three years with Lufthansa (whose partners include LOT, my local airline).  I'd like to get to gold - the card does look good in the wallet - but the ratio of status to award miles (which is how the Star Alliance decides the card colour) is quite low, unlike in oneworld where the ratio is 1:1.  It took me a couple of years of exclusive Lufthansa/LOT flying to get to silver and it's taking forever to get any further.  Maybe next year..... 

Anyway, the award miles are great.  I got up to around 150,000 on BA, and used them to make a few trips back to the UK, to fly family to Warsaw from the UK, and to get us away on two holidays.  The first was to Malta before we had the kids (good holiday - we got cheap accomodation from a mate of mine and Ania got her PADI diving licence) and then last year, to use up the last few miles before they expired, we all (including Ania's mum) went to England for a week, business class.  I wrote about that earlier - see the entry That was the Year that was.  I've not used any of my Star Alliance miles, though I'm up to about 175,000 now.  This is mainly because it's a bit tricky.  BA was simple - I decided where I wanted to go, went on line, selected the dates and there you go, all booked.  Simples, as they say.  Last year Ania and I decided to leave the kids with her mum for a week and head off to either the Maldives or Seychelles for a belated honeymoon - Kuba was 6 months old when we got married so we weren't able to get away then, but now the kids are older and happy to stay with their granny we can do so.  So I went on line to try and check flights and so on for Lufthansa.....and could find nothing.  Both the island paradises are featured destinations but for when we wanted to travel (October last year, six months ahead) there was no flight availability.  After several phone calls I managed to get through to a call centre in Hamburg, and was advised that, because they don't know how many seats will be available for awards on any given flight until the last couple of weeks before departure it wasn't possible to book that far in advance.  This leads to a difficult decision to make - do you book accomodation well in advance, to get the best bargains, and hope there is flight availability, or do you wait til the last minute to book your flight and then pay top dollar to get accomodation - if indeed there is any available - at your chosen destination?  I asked Lufthansa - the girl had no idea and told me to send a letter.  I sent an e-mail instead, got a nice acknowledgement, but nothing since.  We're now planning to use them next year to visit a friend of ours (Caryn from Trinidad - see A walk in the Jungle) who has returned to her homeland South Africa.  So we'll have accomodation sorted and should be able to get the flights booked, once we've agreed dates.  It will be an adventure - Lufthansa use the Airbus 380 super-jumbos on the route (the kids, both aeroplane fanatics, will love that!), and Caryn lives in the bush.  Her next door neighbours are lions and elephants and antelope and God knows what else.

So the miles are nice.  But the best perk is, without doubt, lounge access.

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Now the average airport departure lounge is not the most pleasant place to be hanging around waiting for a flight.   Invariably overcrowded with seating that is both uncomfortable and inadequate, with overpriced food outlets and overpriced duty-free shopping, they are unfortunately a necessary evil.  Some of them are quite awful - Belgrade sticks in my mind: a small and dirty buuilding still bearing the scars from the wars 15 years or so ago, with a couple of seedy looking kiosks selling cheap local beer and greasy burgers, an understocked duty free shop and a handful of hard couches to sit on, I was glad I arrived only a half hour before departure.  It may have improved since then (there was evidence of building work at the airport) but it's not one I'm in a hurry to re-visit.   By contrast, Istanbul was excellant.  It's a massive building, with plenty of space and comfortable seating areas, a good range of food outlets and better choice of duty free shopping.  I passed through it a few times on my way home from Beirut (the fares on the route being cheaper than via Frankfurt, Milan or Paris) and each trip had transfer times of at least 10 hours.   But they weren't really a problem: I'd arrive there about 8 a.m. on the Saturday morning and head straight to Starbucks.  Breakfast of donuts or lemon cake and latte.  I could sit there happily reading my book, listening to my music and drinking coffee for hours, undisturbed in a comfortable armchair.  Then at lunch time I would go to a particular restuarant offering excellent local food and beer at very reasonable prices and while away another couple of hours.  Then a stroll around the duty free shops for an hour or so (rarely buying anything), before another trip to Starbucks.  A nice relaxing day.

Heathrow Terminal 5 isn't too bad either, nor Gatwick North - again, plenty of food places and shops but being the UK and BAA managed, ridculously expensive and in some cases lacking service.  Pretty much everywhere in the world you go into a bar or restaurant (whether at an airport or elsewhere), find a seat and very quickly someone will come and give you a menu and take your order.  And keep returning to your table all the time you are there to check if you need anything.  This is true even in JFK, which is an airport I hate.  This is called "Customer Service".  But in the UK it just doesn't happen, at least not as often.  The other week I was passing through Gatwick en route from Geneva to Jersey, and had about 4 hours to kill, over a lunch time.  When I got to the departure lounge, I strolled upstairs and checked out the food outlets.  There was a very nice looking place, closely modelled on a typical English pub, with a good range of beer taps behind the bar and a decent menu, with plenty of seating both inside the place and on the balcony outside, overlooking the duty free shopping area below.  Since this area was much less crowded, I made myself comfortable at a table by the balcony rail and settled down with my book.  Ten minutes later, I was still waiting to be served - while in the walkway between the balcony area and the bar stood 4 staff members chatting.  I waved at them.  They ignored me.  I reluctantly put my book down, walked over and asked for a menu and a pint of John Smiths.  They looked at me as if I was from the Planet Zog. 

"You have to go to the bar," said a spotty faced herbert whose badge said his name was Tom. 

"I'm sorry, " I said, "I thought you worked here." 

The spotty faced herbert shrugged his skinny shoulders.

"We do."

"Then please bring me a menu and pint of John Smiths."

He blinked and sighed in exasperation.

"We don't do waiter service, " he said.  "You have to get it from the bar yourself."

"Well, fuck you," I said.

I got my bag and went to TGI Fridays instead....waitress service and slightly cheaper food.

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So, when you are a member of an airline alliance, at least above entry level, these issues generally speaking disappear - because your sparkling silver (or gold or black) card gives you free access to their Business Lounge.  Happy days.  Comfortable seats, armchairs and tables, often with interesting views of the tarmac and runway areas.  Internet access to check the sports headlines or mail your wife to tell her you're on the way.  Televisions showing a variety of progammes, at least two of which (CNN and BBC World News) will be in English.  Newspapers and magazines to read or browse.  Clean and well maintained toilets.  Sometimes even showers, if you have time and fancy freshening up after a night flight.   You can even work at a desk, if you're that much of saddo.  And best of all....loads and loads of free food and drink (tea, coffee, and a full selection of beers, wines and spirits).    They can almost make air travel enjoyable again.

Airlines and airports spend buckets of money on them, purely to capture and cater for the lucrative business travel market.  Now my cheapskate employer never buys business class tickets, they are way too expensive these days, even on the short haul routes.  But my Frequent Flyer status (as it's called on Lufthansa - or Frequent Traveller on BA), gained through all those thousands of airmiles and hundreds of flights over the years, means that even I, a cattle class pleb, can get the same benefit as your company chairman travelling business class (but not First Class....invariably they have their own little den).  It is a benefit worth having, I promise you.

Again, there is variety.  Belgrade had a business lounge of sorts - a small, dirty, smoky room with a pay bar.  I didn't bother.  Istanbul had a really nice looking lounge, run by Turkish Airlines, but even though they are full members of the Star Alliance they only admit gold card holders.   It's a similar story in Athens (or at least it was last time I passed through a couple of years ago).  Some lounges are quite small and cramped - like JFK, although their free smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels are excellent.  The non-Schengen lounge at Warsaw is a little on the small side too.  But there LOT have opened a new lounge for its travellers that is really nice - spacious and comfortable, and my breakfast there every Monday morning is much better than that provided on the flight.   The old BA lounge in Heathrow Terminal 1 was always good, split level, good range of food and drink and newpapers and tvs, and ok for a spot of celebrity spotting - I saw David Coulthard and Fernando Alonso in there once, on their way to Barcelona for testing.  I've never been to the lounge in the new BA Terminal 5 as I'm only blue so can.t normally get in (we didn't have time on the way home from our trip last year...too much duty free shopping!) but I'm reliably informed it's excellent.

My favourite two lounges are Frankfurt (an airport that generally I loathe) and Zurich.  Both are big and roomy, with a great selection of food both cold and hot - soups and sausages, with potato salads, as well as a super range of fresh cut sandwiches and fruit.  And draft beer.......none of this bottled Heineken or whatever local brew, but draft Lowenbrau.

So on a Friday, as often as I can manage it, I will duck out of work a bit earlier than necessary to get my flight.   I will get to the airport nice and early, hopefully to miss out on the crowds that make air travel so unpleasant these days.  I will do an internet check in the night before travel, to further speed things up by using the fast bag drop desk (rarely more than half a dozen people in the queue).  Then I will spend a relaxing hour (or two or even three) hours chilling out after what is often a diffcult and tiring week, enjoying the hospitality that the airlines provide. 

It makes the reality of being away from home, the security queues and flight delays (on occasional cancellations) more bearable somehow.