Originally Posted by
extramileage
I departed ORD T5 on EK a couple of days ago. The place is now a full construction site, redoing retail and F&B, so customer experience is even worse at the moment. Probably the worst contract lounge of in the entire network, too.
https://www.ord21.com/signature_proj...erminal-5.aspx
Was chatting with one of the check-in agents. Although not employed by EK, he said it was unlikely EK could move to T1 unless it joined Star Alliance due to exclusivity clauses in that pact, which kind of makes sense.
I agree, any lounge in T5 is below par in so many ways... the only possible exception is the new DL lounge, but I have no experience with it as it only recently opened when DL moved operations to T5. I have not been in T5 for over a year, but I guess Chicago politicos touted the renovations being operational now was just that, functional but maybe there are more parts not 100% complete than they claimed. But everything should be complete in T5 this year, and will be sooo much better, but still not comparable to many other int'l hubs. I had not thought about the potential *A issues, but would seem to make sense.... and I can't imagine EK joining *A