Part of the move into selling lounge access, other than the clear financial gains, must be the fact that Lounge-Only operators do quite well.

No 1 Lounges, Aspire, etc are all growing (albeit their financial models aren't great). However, while the biggest cost for them is the renting of the space, airlines don't have that issue as they're already paying for the lounge rent.

The EK and EY lounges can, at times, be very busy - so adding additional passengers wont help matters. However, the same can be said about the lounges at HIA.

All being said, if I wanted somewhere comfortable to sit, and had a lengthy layover, I'd definitely consider paying for lounge access.

M