Sure, but how many non-flying members did they really have? That number has to be dwarfed by the number of OAL passengers.

Besides, both statements could be true: they could have originally envisioned the clubs as passenger-only, then decided to allow gate passes when somebody complained and they realized that people were using the clubs in situations they hadn’t originally envisioned.

I should probably withdraw the statement, though. It’d be more correct to say that they probably never envisioned anyone would use the clubs when they weren’t flying with that airline, and just leave it at that. There wasn’t much of a need for a rule of any kind until crowding started to become an issue.