Originally Posted by lowfareair

The thing Gary doesn't touch on is how much more crowded airports are now. Looking at the US Centurion airports in February 2023, excepting SEA/SFO as their lounges got much larger in the past 12 months and MIA as they haven't reported Feb 2023 yet, year over year passenger count changes look like this:

Airport | Percentage Change | Source
DEN 15.2% https://www.flydenver.com/sites/defa...0FlyDenver.pdf
PHL 18.3% https://www.phl.org/drupalbin/media/...ary%202023.pdf
LGA 40.6% https://www.panynj.gov/airports/en/s...eral-info.html
JFK 30.6% https://www.panynj.gov/airports/en/s...eral-info.html
CLT 16.60% https://cltairport.mediaroom.com/media#activity
LAS 24.90% https://www.harryreidairport.com/Bus...ics?id=1401906
LAX 20.1% https://www.lawa.org/-/media/375c167...e7368bedc9.pdf
PHX 16.1% https://www.skyharbor.com/media/d25j...2023-stats.pdf
DFW 29% https://assets.ctfassets.net/m2p70vm...Pax_Report.pdf
Average: 23.5% increase

That's almost 25% more than last year. Imagine how the lounges were in February of last year and then add 25% on top of that and that's how crowded the lounges would be if there was still full guest access. That's not even considering any net cardholder growth in the past 12 months...