frenchft

ok, so, i confirm not a big deal. I hate when lounge are used as an hotel room (it's the case in istanbul for exemple where people are sleeping everywhere...). There is a great hotel in front of the airport at ATH anyway. In my opinion if there is no night flights better to close the lounges.

DELLAS

True hopefully it gets sorted and it becomes 3am on a reliable basis. Nothing worse than a J class passenger booking LHR-ATH-RHO or wherever on the basis a lounge is open to freshen up in and relax in only to find it closed until 0400/0430. With A3 offering such a good onboard product the ground product needs to be in line also.

Palmer

Guess where I am? It's just after 4:00 am (local). Pleasantly surprised and enjoying a glass of water courtesy of A3. Bagged myself a sofa in the corner of the lounge. Happy days.

Palmer

DELLAS

Good stuff thanks for the update. Water? You should be on the Metaxa mate

frenchft

So, get the confirmation today, there is winter and summer time (summer time start next week).
In winter 4am>10pm and summer 3am>11.30pm
Quite bad for passengers flying to amman on the 11.30pm fight during winter time.

KLouis

The Amman flight leaves from the A (non-Schengen) gates. A3 has no own lounge in that part of the airport; if nothing has changed, it uses the Swissport lounge.

lgts

I can confirm that. Had to fly non-Schengen a few weeks ago and we used the Swissport lounge, which by the way is quite nice!

jbfield

Wow, really?
My current experience is that there's limited food (2x meaty/fishy sandwiches, 1x cheese roll, green 'n purple olives, otherwise its doughnuts. Condensed milk if you want it in your tea else you'll have to take it black.

Loos were out of paper towels and in general the room looked a bit decrepid around the sink area.

The lounge has got better views though and more space but I don't personsonally see much else going for it.

The wifi is just the airport's own (limited to 60 minutes).

I think you get better variety/selection in the A3 and Lufthansa lounges by the B gates (a trek away) [I've compared all three of them today over two flights].

Edit:
One correction - I just found the regular milk...though I'm on the green tea now.

They have run out of plates though - there were three left an hour ago, but now there are none (I know it was an hour ago as my internet session expired).

frenchft

Agree, swissport lounge sucks (wifi is aiport one and after 1 hour u have to pay, food selection is inexistant, drinks are kind of joke (not even individual cans, only big bottles), etc etc etc ... if i have enough time i go to schengen A3 lounge. Swissport lounge is not even an option for me.

jbfield

A bit later in the evening they had a heated tray with some skewers in: Looked like Lamb Kofta kebabs and some chicken kebabs. Noticed the fridge had some tuna salad added as well.

It got a litle busier in the end too - I think due to the Qatar flight. Noticed the smell of smoke from the smoking room permeated the end of the lounge.

When I left I notice the hand paper in the loos still had not been replenished...that was despite seeing a cleaner go in there two hours prior.

benberg2013

Does the A3 lounge by A gates not also have this problem?

FlyEurope

It does, but IMHO not nearly to the same extent as the Swissport Lounge. I think the A3 Lounge has better ventilation/ac in the smooking section and probably the glass wall dooes a better job in keeping the smoke in the smoking section.

Knobbgb

I'm sure it had it had free access when I was last there, although that was last October. I asked at the desk and was given a password for the WiZ-Business SSID which is available all over the airport. Sorry I don't remember the password. I distinctly remember sitting down by the windows watching aircraft taxi in and watching stuff on Youtube for nearly three hours.

I actually quite like that lounge. The food is nothing special, but then neither is that which is on offer in the A3 lounge, tbh. They had these mini-burgers when I was there in the later afternoon - about half the size of a regular one and quite nice. I managed to empty the coffee pot (not a rare ocurrence for me!) and when it wasn't refilled for my next visit I asked the attendant and she was very apologetic and refilled it immediately and even came over to tell me when it was brewed. I also like the high back wing sided swivel chairs by the windows which offer some privacy when it's busy.

Can anyone confirm - are *G allowed in the Swissport lounge when travelling Aegean economy? I've only ever been in when on a C class ticket or in the old days when I had Priority Pass. The A3 site just says that Business class ticket holders can use the lounge but doesn't mention golds.

frenchft

no problem even in economy if travelling non-schengen (anyway you can't access this area without a non-schegen ticket)

jbfield

I think you meant to say "anyway you can't access this area without a non-schegen ticket"