Originally Posted by
aztimm
All that said, I do wonder how many people purposely plan to arrive early for a domestic flight, say IAH-PHX/LAX and would pay to make it worthwhile for AA.
At certain airports, like SNA, I would definitely have no issue arriving early (which means more than an hour before the flight) to try out the lounge (especially if I am with the family). That is another interesting example of an unusual airport to have a lounge. The demographics make it an easy decision, but the volume is still a bit iffy to justify the operations perhaps. I think they still have the landline phones that you can use to make calls out. Neato. With the red-eyes at ONT (no lounge), I wonder how comparable the volume is versus SNA these days.
Others like ATL are very important to make a non-hub market, but big market useful.
Interestingly, I wouldn't arrive early to most airports like LAX/ORD/JFK due to the lounge. Maybe that will eventually change, but for the moment they are more hassle than useful.
I like the purpose of DFW and PHX (even took the long hike to use a lounge when traveling on SWA), but the transit times are so short, there are many times where I have to just move quickly between gates.
Rasheed