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Old Jul 31, 2013, 6:19 am
  #39  
DLLAX
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 57
Originally Posted by benzemalyonnais
Seems like they've upgraded the f+b offering in the past week. Probably has something to do with the BA/LH flights. It sure looked like a SC when I was there
Yes, I'd assume so.

The politics of this club are pretty interesting from what I hear from friends at ATL and at PP...

1. This is the airport's club built for BA/LH...not built or developed by any third-party. PP claims it's theirs and the airport did allow them to throw their name on it and it also allowed a completely different party to run it (a company called GTMS) but PP had nothing to do with it except act as a contractor. PP made no investment in it...the airport did 100%. And don't think that ATL wasn't thinking that they'd want this to be better than a Skyclub...they did of course.

Some people inside ATL are apparently pretty upset with PP for trying to take so much credit for it when all PP did was apparently make some demands of the airport that slowed down the project.

2. This explains why the product is so much better than the similar LAS unbranded "Club" that PP puts their name on; the airport is paying for it whereas no one is paying for the low-end PP product in LAS. ATL is a very similar situation as the one that's in DFW Terminal D that DFW built for BA, etc..

So ATL built this to keep BA and LH happy and we are the beneficiaries!

I'm a big fan of these non-DL-clubs popping up including this one. But, unfortunately, the location of this is going to keep me away on most of my trips.

The Airspace Lounges in BWI and CLE, in contrast, are nicely located for DL customers, offer incremental adds to the network (there are no SCs in either spot) and are of a consistent high-end quality. Airspace seems to work well with DL ground staff in CLE; Ive been hoping there is some sort of ptshp w/Airspace to fill in more blanks in the SC network, but from what I hear there isn't one.

This ATL lounge really wasn't built for the regular connecting customer to use and even if I try to go out of my way...I probably wont make it here on 9 out of 10 trips to ATL that require the standard T/A/B/C/D type of connection. That being said, Im glad it's there to shake DL's tree a bit!
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