Duke787

This also means DL Arrivals Lounge for all DL flights (instead of having to trek over from T4 or going to the Yotel).

markbb99

Do you think that lounge will be able to cope with the influx of additional passengers?

Lewis42

You're right. I was in this lounge for the first time about a month ago and it wasn't all that large. I think arrivals lounges are fantastic and very under-utilised.

Perhaps this surge in extra PAX will mean increased revenue and profitability which will mean an expansion?

UKtravelbear

what extra passengers?

These are the same passengers that previously landed at T4 but who will now land at T3.

RobertS975

Well, DL owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic, so I wouldn't worry about them getting along!

RobertS975

Although some routings are possible, it seems that DL offers very few published connections on its website that use LHR. And using one terminal for all its LHR flights make a lot of sense for DL and VS in case of IIROPs due to winter storms etc back in the USA.

Lewis42

Extra passengers landing at T3 visiting the VS arrivals lounge.

UKtravelbear

But these are DL passengers already!

You wrote

As these are existing passengers there isn't any extra revenue!

Duke787

DL passengers can only access DL Arrivals lounge, not VS arrivals lounge so this change won't have any impact on VS Arrivals Lounge.

It could however impact the DL Arrivals lounge though as you noted Arrivals lounges are very under-utilized so it might only make a difference on the margins.

Lewis42

Poor choice of words. My bad.

I also just found out that DL passengers arriving in T3 do not get access to VS arrivals lounge which I assumed they would.

What I thought was: Since there will now be more DL passengers arriving in T3 they can access the VS arrivals lounge. With more people using the lounge, the lounge will get more money. More money & overcrowded leads to maybe a bigger arrivals lounge.

Correct me if I am wrong, which apparently I am a lot in this topic. Lounges get paid based on number of people who enter. Every time I enter a lounge the lounge charges the airline £10 (or other figure). If I am a J passenger and don't enter the lounge, the lounge does not get to charge the airline. This still applies to lounges that are airline operated. If the number of passengers entering the VS lounge goes from 100 to 120 / day they now have an extra £200 (using previous figure) in revenue.

UKtravelbear

DL has it's own arrivals lounge at T3 (it was the former AC one before they moved to T2) so that's why passengers arriving on DL metal don't get to access VS revivals.

flyerCO

Never really understood the reason for DL opening their own arrivals lounge in T3 since they share everything else with VS.

bgriff

I think it was a matter of the VS arrivals lounge getting overcrowded, and presumably there wasn't really any way to make it bigger, so DL just added its own to create more capacity for the partnership.

Though I think the DL arrivals lounge is quite a bit smaller than the VS one, so the additional DL flights in T3 may raise concerns about the capacity of the DL arrivals lounge. Presumably, since moving the other DL flights to T3 has been the end plan for quite a while now, the DL arrivals lounge was built with the full schedule in mind, but who knows. Perhaps if the DL lounge does get overcrowded they can set up an arrangement to send individual overflow passengers back up to the VS lounge as needed and when the VS lounge has capacity. (The VS arrivals lounge managed to handle reasonably well when it was doing VS + some DL before the DL arrivals lounge opened, so presumably now that it is doing VS only, it has at least a bit of excess capacity.)

flyerCO

Other then DL elites no other Skyteam partners should get access unless flying D1. I've seen confusion sometimes when an agent reads a DL issued boarding pass that says Plat on it and doesn't recognize that it's not a DL but other Skyteam Partner Plat.

atl runner

I'm surprised I don't see a thread on this--which I may have missed--but I see where, starting the middle of next month--all Delta flights out of LHR will use T3, instead of the current system where certain cities use T3 and others T4.^

Will that give access to the VS Clubhouse for folks flying on DL metal in Delta One (Business), or does DL have it's own lounge in T3? I've flown VS out of there and used the Clubhouse, but my DL flights to ATL have been out of T4.