Europeanexplorer

Hi everyone,

As promised, I wanted to post a short picture report of the new Concourse A as well as the new EK First Lounge contained therein. For a brief period (2nd January-9th January 2013) this lounge was open to Business Class and Skywards Gold customers while the Concourse A Business Class lounge had not opened yet.

Getting there

For those who are not familiar with DXB, Concourse A is connected to Concourse B with an automated people mover. This departs from the lower level of Concourse B. The vehicles are efficient and clean. If you sit in the first or last carriage, you even get a view out the front/back window.


The waiting area for the automated people mover.


Orderly lanes while you wait - usually no more than 1-2 minutes.


A clean and efficient layout.


No driver = view... of the tunnel.

Concourse A

Upon arrival to Concourse A, you are greeting by a massive hall similar to the one in the middle of Concourse B. There are elevators here that take you up to the departures level.


The sight as you exit the people mover in Concourse A.


The massive elevators that take passengers up to the departures level.


This looks awfully familiar...

As you may have noticed by now, this all looks a little familiar. That is because Concourse A, for better or worse, looks very similar to Concourse B. Most of the design elements are the same and so is the Duty Free.


Plenty of Duty Free - just not as busy (yet)


The first car to win - a neat Bentley.


Great architecture on display


The expansive of the Duty Free and lounges

More about the lounge follows below.

Europeanexplorer

Concourse A First Class lounge

The Emirates First and Business Class lounges are located on the two floors above the main departures area. Each occupies an entire floor and if the First Class lounge is anything to go buy, these lounges are massive. In fact, they make the already huge (but crowded) Concourse B lounges feel tiny. The entrances to the lounges are in the middle of Concourse A using the escalators opposite the large elevators from the automated people mover arrival area.


The entrance into the First Class lounge.

There are plenty of desks to greet passengers and the actual entrances are through the small passages between the desks. At the time of my visit, half of the new First Class lounge was still closed. However, the other half was already as large as the old lounge in Concourse B. Beyond the entrance there is a Duty Free shop stocked only with expensive goods and several small seating areas.


The half that is still under construction.


Duty Free shopping in the lounge.


The seating area near the entrance.

There are plenty of small seating areas along the main central passage running through the lounge.


The first largest seating area with some food at the side.


More seating along the central corridor.


Looking upwards towards the new Business Class lounge.

Some great new additions are a quiet resting room with bed-like seating and a large stylish seating area with some food options at the rear of the lounge. Both of these new areas offer much more intimacy than the old lounge.


The new quiet room.


The large seating area at the end of the lounge.


Plenty of seats.


A great ceiling and intimate setting.

There is also a large Business Center in the middle of the lounge as well as a table-service dining area like in the Concourse B lounge.


The Business Center.


The dining area.


A nice table overlooking the Concourse below.


Few passengers were using the lounge at the time.


The same tableware as the Concourse B lounge.

Overall, this lounge has some nice new features. The quite rooms and more intimate seating areas are definitely nice.

However, overall, it risks commoditizing the First Class experience. In many places, it does not feel like a lounge – it feels like a normal airport departure area. The Duty Free shop and massive size with long empty corridors may be to blame for the general lack of ambience. This is a shame, because the images of Concourse A that EK put on the advertising canvases in all of their lounges looked so promising.

Half of the First Class lounge may still be closed, but from what I saw this new addition is more of an evolution rather than a revolution. Personally, I have to admit that I prefer the old First Class lounge in Concourse B. Thus, perhaps the biggest benefit of this new addition is that it will make the Concourse B First lounge quieter.

Safe Travels

mrtdxb

Thanks very much Europeanexplorer - great pictures. Did you happen to notice where the smoking area(s) is?

Uli

hi,

concourse A already hit me this morning. arriving on a380 from HKG transfer to a 777 flight at a C gate. what a distance!
can they please offer some kind of premium service (againt cash of course) with golf carts?
when i arrive dubai, i usually book the VVIP service that picks you up by car directly on tarmac an uses their own terminal, but they do not offer this for connections -- arrivals only.
any idea how to solve this?
you can call me snobby as much as you like, but i just prefer to be treated individually -- that is why i fly EK first class suites -- and not be in a bus or train together with zillions of people.

Uli

our provider for line-skipping and airport-buggies in asia, just replied they can also do something in dubai. so let us see.

anyhow, it was clear that as EK grows to be the biggest airline in the world also the distances in the airport will grow

Europeanexplorer

Thanks mrtdxb. I actually do not recall seeing a smoking area, though I would imagine there is one in the numerous rooms off the central walkway. Alternatively, the closed half of the lounge may feature a large smoking area.

Oneworldplus2

Thanks OP.

dogsrock

Europeanexplorer, super photos, thank you for posting.

I guess the new J lounge will be similar, just with loads more furniture. Hopefully, someone will post photos soon, if not I will after my transit through DXB at the end of January.

Thanks again.

ANZ787900

Thanks for sharing!

The size of the concourse infrastructure is beyond impressive.. I've never seen anything like it. The lounge looks huge but also seems to resemble more of a hotel lobby than anything.. Would anyone have guessed it was an F lounge from just looking at the pictures?

ung1

Thanks for sharing - looks BIG, but perhaps a bit too bright and impersonal as you say.

Would be interesting to know whether they fixed the showers! Also, why a big communal sleeping room instead of proper sleeping rooms like every other F lounge in the world?!

Europeanexplorer

The water pressure seemed much better - but this could be down to the lack of people in the lounge. Maybe it will go downhill again once it is full. I agree with you on the sleeping area - they could have done much better.

edy4eva

Have things looked/felt any different since then? Is the lounge in Concourse B any quieter?
Also, if my flight arrives to Concourse A and my connecting flight is out of Concourse C, is it worth it to stick to the new F lounge? What about travel time between A and C?

GigoloArt

Thanks for sharing Europeanexplorer!

mrtdxb

If you have time I would say it is worth it - especially if you are a smoker as I love the new set up. Allow 10 mins from leaving the F lounge to emerge in the middle of Concourse B and then depending which end of C your flight is leaving from another 10 to 20 minutes to hike down to your gate. I thought someone mentioned that their might be a bus connection between A and C but I do not know if there is ...

Lux

Although I've not taken it myself, there is a bus connection to the C gates clearly labeled on the map handed out when A opened, and the signs for connections from A to B and C head in different directions.