MrArkadin

Flew from CDG a couple of days ago, still no lounge for A3 G*.

I didn't think to try but a friend of mine used the extra Schengen lounge with no problem, same as before the renovation.

Only problem is you need to do passport checks.

lio13

You mean your friend used the extra Schengen lounge, even if he/she had a ticket for a Schengen country? How did it work? I think they check your ticket at the passport control no?

MrArkadin

Looks like CDG T1 lounge access has been reinstated for A3

TPJ

BTW - what has happened to the SK 'lounge'? I recall how terrible it was, but at least you was in a right Satellite for boarding.

KATERGOO

I have requested compensation for the absence of lounge at CDG and here was there answer : Dear Mr. X

I have received your message and I am very sorry for this unexpected development regarding the Partner Lounge at Paris Airport.

Following our reallocation from T2 to T1, unfortunately, several difficulties have arisen with the use of Lounge at the airport of Paris.

Recently and following discussions with the airport authorities, our passengers are allowed access to the Star Alliance Lounge at T1.

As a complimentary gesture for the inconvenience caused we have doubled the award miles earned from the specific travel, so as to use them, any way you wish.

Thank you for contacting us and we frankly hope that we will have the chance to move your current sentiments to a more positive level next time. Please feel free to contact us anytime, if you have anything else to share.

Yours sincerely,

lio13

Just to post my recent experience. It's a nightmare.. basically you have to pass police (!!) control checking your passport/ID only to access the lounge as it's in the extra Schengen area.. So you have to wait in line to enter and after again (!!) to exit, and after pass the normal security control for your luggage, with a risk of being late at the gate. Never saw that in another airport.. And not only that. Police would not allow a fellow passenger to pass because in the lounge pass that they gave to him, they did not write down the name and surname of his wife , but simply +1, as it's the standard for stal alliance companies to allow +1 for gold members. A total mess..

Chr04

When I complained about the absence of the lounge in Thessaloniki they gave me 10.000 award miles

futuramadramallama

That does suck.

But I think the behavior of the police(?) and the actions of the lounge pass issuer (presumably A3 check in staff) were each understandable given the different job functions of each. It's just unfortunate that your friend and his +1 fell through the cracks of this unusual lounge arrangement. For instance, let's say check-in staff are inclined towards hospitality, and airport police(?) towards security. One might be able to see how check-in staff don't typically write specific names on passes, and how airport police(?) don't know the procedures or cultural norms of lounges and are simply concerned with errant passengers entering secure areas.

The short term solution to this might be to instruct check-in staff to start writing passenger names and +1s on lounge passes. The long term solution is a CDG lounge option in the same zone as A3's departure gates.

futuramadramallama

Thessaloniki doesn't have an A3 lounge?

Chr04

The connection of old building to the newly built was made at the place that the A3 lounge was at the old building.
Until the construction of new lounge finished, A3 didnt offer any lounge service at Thessaloniki.

Knobbgb

I visited the *A lounge at CDG yesterday. The whole airport is an absolute joke - a disorganised mess and I wonder how it functions at all. I arrived from Asia at the very end gate in Hall M of terminal 2E (as far as it's possible to be from terminal 1) with a 3hr50 connection to my Aegean flight from... T1. Despite having so long I only just made the flight after spending just 15 minutes in the lounge. That LONG rant can be for another day (THREE different buses, passing through THREE different security checkpoints, nearly an hour for passport control AND a lost bag!). Anyway, the lounge...

In summary I'd say DON'T BOTHER. It's dark, low ceilinged with almost no natural light, crowded and the food and drink on offer is very mediocre. It reminds me of something you would have found in the old T1 at Heathrow 20 years ago.






I was there for late breakfast and the food was... edible, that's all I'll say. Both coffee machines were out of order, although they sorted one of them out quite quickly. There's a basic alcohol selection as well as soft drinks and beer in a small fridge.



The only really pleasant place to sit is a row of high seats by the window at the far end (no view though). I had a really good rant with the guy in the photo about how bad the airport was. If you happen to be reading this - I hope you made it to Canada more efficiently than I made it to Greece.


There is an outside area but it was around 4 degrees that morning so I only ventured out for 20 seconds. On a warmer day I imagine it would be full of smokers anyway.



There's a separate area for first class pax. only, which was not "guarded" in any way but was empty.



There are also toilets and some showers in a corridor at the back. To get to the lounge you take an elevator up from lever 4 to level 10 from the extra-Schengen part of the main round terminal building and then follow the signs along the twists and turns of corridors. Luckily that's where I was already having transferred airside from terminal 2. I really wouldn't bother if you are already in the intra-Schengen part of the terminal.

I don't know how long the lounge has been there but it's position and layout really seem like it was an afterthought, like: "We have to cram this in somewhere, where is there a little free space?". And I'm not sure who actually runs it either. It's just billed as "The Star Alliance Lounge" with no airline or third party company claiming responsibility. I didn't realise *A operated lounges like that and I'm not surprised nobody wants to own up!

After leaving the lounge passport control was a joke. There were literally several hundred people queueing for what looked like two agents and people being directed to different queues, seemingly at random. After waiting for about 45 minutes I asked if I was in the right place for my gate and was told I wasn't and I should have gone to "the other control, around the other side, it's quieter". So, I wandered 180 degrees around the circular building and indeed, there was a second passport control with literally not a single person waiting. The two agents looked very bored and surprised to see me. Why nobody else was sent here I don't know as they both eventually opened into to the same area.

Finally, after my THIRD time through security, I was at the zoo of a gate area just before boarding started.

So, I say again, don't bother with this lounge unless you are REALLY desperate or are already in extra-Schengen anyway. Even then, allow twice as much time as you think you'll need.

futuramadramallama

Not to make you relive this, but how inefficient it is to require passengers do security three times. Nevermind the passport control situation you described. I wonder if this is the regular transfer flow or if something is broken or under construction at the moment, and passengers are being mistakenly shuttled from secure-to-insecure areas, leaving them no choice but to be screened again.

Knobbgb

It's a bit off-topic which is why I didn't go into detail. Here we go... The first security check was on arrival at T2E Hall M where all arrivals have to be checked before getting airside - fair enough. Then a bus took us to the main building of 2F where we were herded up an escalator, through a small duty free shop and then down again back to where we had started (but on the opposite side of the waiting room behind a temporary barrier) before boarding the second bus through the exact same door we arrived through. (And I'm referring to a map of the terminals now, as I write this, to work out where I actually was).
That bus was supposed to take us to T1 via terminal 2E, 2C and 2A but we stopped at 2E and the driver herded us off to wait for the bus behind - I guess it was time for him to go on strike or something. At least there was no more security check here.
The third bus took us to the new international pier at T1 but there was some work going on by the arrival door (it was very close to an aircraft stand an there was an Aer Lingus A321 with some engineers working on a high-loader) so we couldn't park there. After a couple of minutes we drove to another door which I assume was where T1 arriving pax. are bussed to the terminal and hence why we ended up on the wrong side of security. So, a second security check (not very busy luckily) and then I had to find the lounge.
I admit, this is the one and only time in 35 years of flying and over 1000 flights where I have been "lost" in an airport and had to ask directions. I even had to ask if I was airside or landside as I had no clue by this point. I had also not been through any immigration yet having arrived from Asia 90 minutes and three buses ago.
I was directed along a glass-lined corridor, up some stairs, along another corridor then downstairs again and back along the SAME CORRIDOR I'd just walked along (on the other side of the glass), then UP again to the entrance to the underground travellator (that we all know) to the central terminal building. Here I had to ask directions again as I couln't see any signs to the lounge. Finally, after the lounge visit and farce of immigration queues, there was the THIRD security check at the end of the underground travellator linking the central building to the remote pier.
The pier containing gate 51 was unbelievably busy with people jostling for places to STAND, let alone sit, and the boarding queue was just as bad with no organisation, people pushing in front of others shouting "Gold, Gold!". The gate staff had just given up and, at boarding time, just opened the doors and started scanning anyone who had been managed to push to the front.

As I say, I consider myself an 'expert' at negotiating airports so I've no idea how the occasional traveller would cope. Actually, they'd probably find it easier because they'd just go into "sheep mode" and not try to search for the logic. Al in all, I think it would have been quicker and less stressful to simply "arrive" at T2E, clear immigration, take the landside shuttle to T1 and then head to the gate from there.

Anyway, I've just finally got my bag delivered and, drum roll... NOTHING STOLEN and no damage, which I consider a big plus as I've had things go missing twice before at CDG and I thought this was sure to be the case after the bag sat there overnight.

Sorry for the rant and thanks - I feel more relaxed now, finally.

KLouis

Having spent the last hour reading Knobbgb's last two absolutely great emails, I'd like to ask our mod to simply delete any incoming post that expresses 1) a critical view on boarding an A3/OA flight at any Greek airport, 2) description of a problematic connection at ATH and 3) any kind of negative view of lounges in Athens (all of them, not only the new A3 one), especially in terms of overcrowding, food offered, and distance to security.

futuramadramallama

Thanks for sharing. It's relevant to the A3 experience at CDG, and since some of us may have the choice of which A3 station to start/end/connect, it can help someone decide whether they want to pick CDG.

That sounded like an awful way to spend a 4h connection.

If I read that correctly, it sounds like there were at least two problems. First, is inherent to CDG's design. Perhaps each terminal section has its own security and queues. Similar to airports of a certain era and design where there are many separate terminals, each serving a different carrier, this makes transfers between different airside-sections a bit of a faff at the best of times, a total nightmare at the worst of times. The second is there was confusion by the bus drivers and the queue-organizers, amongst others, about where to send passengers. This could be because of insufficient training, insufficient logical thinking, construction, etc. These two factors (and possibly others) created a perfect storm of inefficiency.

For example, that second bus that was supposed to take you guys to T1: the "system" didn't anticipate that the driver might just "give up," and for those passengers to be decanted into 2E. The third bus' route didn't anticipate construction. And the first bus... I have no idea what the heck was going on there.

I think a lot of this could be solved if CDG had a different design. Quite a few airports connect all terminals airside, and then group them further as domestic vs intl (or in the case of a Schengen zone airport, Schengen-or-not). So at most there are three "zones," which are: landside, airside-Schengen, airside-non-Schengen. Passengers deboarding at any gate in one zone can easily transfer to another, and if they must move to a different "zone," it's at most two queues (immigration, and security). Even aircraft arriving at hard stands are not terribly inconvenienced: a bus can drop passengers off at any inbound doorway with the correct immigration pathways. In short, the nonsense of buses going to the wrong place is not even a possible situation to start with: there are hardly any buses.

At the time CDG was built, many separate piers may have seemed elegant. In this era, it may well be a hassle (as your unfortunate experience demonstrates). CDG has seemingly created 100 different "zones," and passengers must rely on the efforts of unreliable or confused bus drivers to take them to the right place.