Originally Posted by
dougzz
I get your point, but that £7K CW ticket wouldn’t get you in to GF would it? That’s the odd thing about GF, it’s entirely a status lounge.
I think the fact that it’s a status lounge is exactly my point. Or at least part of my point.
My point is that the combination of (1) OW Emerald offering F lounge access; and (2) the particular features of the market served by LHR/BA mean that there are a disproportionately high number of economy/business pax on SH flights who are entitled to an “F” lounge. And the reality is that each of those pax - on average - is probably on a ticket that cost a couple of hundred quid at most.
That is a stark contrast to places like - for example - the Soho lounge in NY (also OW Emerald, but no AA short haul status pax) or the AY Platinum Wing (in the non-Schengen section, so mainly long haul pax). To take another example, the Cathay F lounges in HK are of course open to all OW Emeralds irrespective of destination, but then you don’t tend to find many £60 economy fares on full service carriers in Asia…
It’s why I always find straight comparisons of the Flounge to other OW Emerald lounges to be flawed. The thing to look at is the profile of the average passenger who will in fact access the lounge. And I doubt there is any other OW Emerald lounge where the average yield per visit per pax is as low as the Flounge.
I may be wrong. But that’s always how I’ve seen / rationalised it.