Originally Posted by
ISTFlyer
As far as I understand, lounges are not allowed to offer food & beverage.
So LOT has decided to close their lounge; they do not earn revenue from their lounges nor they do lose when they close them. The LOT management might have found it economically more proficient to close the lounge instead of restructuring it as a seating area for eligible passengers.
On the other hand, the Preludium lounge is a PriorityPass lounge and also accepts some other memberships. They earn money from those membership partners per each person that visits. Their revenue comes from passenger flow.
Also, people bringing their own food to the LOT lounge would decrease the company's reputation and decrease the quality of the lounge. In an airport lounge where I'm doing work on my computer or when I'm resting before the flight, I wouldn't appreciate someone eating Chicken McNuggets or a Big Mac that could change the smell and the ambiance of the lounge.
Lounges are a revenue earner, as its part of the product. Unless you want to run cook the books fiddling unbundling accounting and open debates as to whether C/F is profitable. Moreover, one of the core reasons to re-open Elite was to collect all of Helga's lovely beans from all her pax. Lounges were important for LOT as they were opened the first day flights recommenced on 01JUN despite the fact that as operating carrier, all visits are accounted back to LOT. Think back to Helga's & BArbs all closed and with Kit Kats and LOT were already weeks ahead in terms of what was offered. Food costs have increased significantly since removing the buffet and they have spent MORE, not less by introducing a varied offer of hot dishes using costlier ingredients. Everyone I've spoken to, including staff who eat the food say the food is better.
I think LOT, quite reasonably, took the view of why bother? No food, no drinks, who wants to visit and there would be so many complaints. Recall the varied interpretation across Poland that the likes of Wroclaw and Gdansk are open as usual, KRK is open but not even water, WAW open and no issues with outside food. In terms of "reconstructing it" all they'd need to do is take all the food and drinks out. Probably would take 30 mins.
There are so few pax in Preludium there's no way the income from guests even covers staffing costs. I saw a full suite of staff working and I thought that like Basia, they use zero hours workers they could just ask not to attend work. Perhaps they have a lot of full time staff meaning its even costlier.
It didn't/doesn't bother me with regards to outside food. When I was in Preludium I saw pax munching on McDo. Staff were attending tables removing leftover detritus. Plus there were a couple of families with disabled kids and I don't see what purpose it would serve to disallow that and where would the standard be set? Disabled kids but not healthy ones, diabetic grandmas but not fit ones.
Better to just let pax get on with it.