Originally Posted by
bse118
Aer Lingus is an IAG-owned airline (same as BA) and is part of the AA, BA, Iberia, Finnair Atlantic Joint Venture.
It's a BA lounge - Aer Lingus doesn't get to set or limit access polices.
I don't know what an anecdote from IAD 7 years ago has to do with opening hours and food at BA's PHL lounge today, but there are posts in this thread with more recent experience from PHL...
there's plenty of examples where lounge access and specific enhanced dining with the lounge have different policies...nothing new or remarkable there. Just like an long-haul F ticket on any OneWorld carrier would get you access to AA's Flagship Lounge, but not necessarily AA's Flagship First Dining, within that lounge.
The anecdote isn't completely irrelevant, there's that case today where BA purchases lounge capacity at airports (eg ATL, YYZ) with other operators such that during the set time cordon off a part of the lounge specifically for the BA flight, and it sometimes has different/elevated food and drink offers.
The difference is that those are stated on the OneWorld website as access for BA only whereas PHL is stated as any OW airline, so they shouldn't be rejecting access except for capacity issues, eg first come first serve.