I agree that reinstating lounge access for a guest outside of DXB will be a great benefit. I mostly travel with a junior colleague and it helps if both of us can spend some time together planning out our meetings. We now have to find a cafe to do that.

I do mainly JFK, BOM and occasionally SIN, SYD, and AKL and I have mostly found the lounges there to have adequate seating - in fact you can usually find a quiet corner for yourself to work.

It is at Dubai between 6:00 am to 8:00 am where you have to think twice whether you want to enter the lounge or not. I don't think restricting guests or even the Flex/ Saver changes have made any perceptible difference during this peak period.

However, when I am on my return leg on EK202 which reaches around 7:30 pm at Dubai, I usually find not more than 25 people in the entire lounge. I think it would help a lot if even at Dubai guest entry was restricted during peak times rather than completely disallowing it. Maybe it will be confusing to some but at least you can plan for it when you know you have a guest with you