frenchft

Amazing news!!
This means : no more families with kids (most of the time very badly educated) in the A3 lounge.
Stunning.

frenchft

1. who cares? it's a tip, useless their offer that anyway
2. the alternative lounge is 20 meters from the A3 lounge, so end of the day no need 6 months notice.
3. The main issue at A3 lounge is not *A gold (they mostly go to LH lounge and are few compare to the horde of A3 silver and gold card holders).
4. call the guys building the extension. end of the day, who cares? it will be when it will be.
5. A3 gold is so easy to get that it's a joke.

giorginho

So you're satisfied with how current lounge situation is like? Perhaps you're lucky and fly at times, when there's minimum traffic, but it's been a disappointment on every visit during the past few months due to overcrowding issues.

Firstly, like I've mentioned elsewhere, we were already directed to the Goldair lounge (gold+blue) about 3,5 weeks ago and I must say I absolutely loved the looks and aesthetics of it /edit: and the toilets and the cleanliness and how polite the staff was /edit. Only downside was the poor food selection.

Secondly I clearly remember most of you discussing the situation since last autumn were wishing for a more "exclusive" experience, many of you even suggesting what types of passengers should get excluded from entering, in order to make the experience for those who "deserve" it more than others better than what it was. Well guess what: Aegean has heard you! Silvers are gone (as is the case with many other programs), golds get a separate lounge (weren't many of you arguing that Aegean should follow Lufthansa's example? Well, there's that! And I could now easily speculate, that when the extensions are completed, that they'll still keep Golds and business class separated).

This should easily cut traffic by over 50%, the lounge will probably still fill up quite easily, especially during high traffic hours, but it won't be a "zoo".

This is certainly Aegean addressing the situation and yes, it is on extremely short notice, but it was also necessary and I support it, even though we do have silvers in the family, who will get excluded (they were excluded anyway since last summer, when entering started meaning less relaxation than staying out)...

I just find it a huge pity and lost opportunity, that they suspended expansion plans due to covid, even though it was a golden opportunity to do all the work with basically zero impact on travellers.
But now I'm looking forward to those expansions getting done!

frenchft

agree with you. It's overall a great news. The situation was a shame since months. Remember how great it was back then (when it was the smoking area). Was not that busy back then and way more pleasant. Cut by 50% would be great indeed and make this lounge a quite decent place (especially without families and kids).

Xandrios

Quite selfishly I'm not a fan. Typically I much prefer the LH lounge when flying *A, and am forced to use the Goldair lounge when flying any other alliance (Which is quite often). The Goldair lounge is experiencing the same capacity issues. While they have expanded somewhat, it is still a limited space and often pushed to 'zoo levels' with large numbers of Priority pass pax. By having significant numbers of Aegean Golds in that lounge it means that it will be at that 99% capacity level much sooner, making it a very unpleasant experience. The same will likely apply to the LH lounge when pax are being denied access at the A3 one.

I guess the only good news is that we now have confirmation that Aegean is in fact looking to expand their Schengen lounge at ATH.

giorginho

LOL, just about 10 minutes ago I was chatting with a friend and wrote quote: "my only objection is that the Goldair lounge will potentially become too crowded"
They were already denying access to priority pass holders 3,5 weeks ago (and they weren't selling any lounge-entry vouchers either), I'm guessing these travellers will now basically get excluded until Aegean's passengers get new space.
But my impression was, that the Goldair lounge has enough space for more seats if need be. It even seemed like there were chairs missing from tables completely in some areas.

Harper50505

For weeks we've been reading complaints about how over crowded the A3 Schengen Lounge is and it would be foolish to think A3 were not aware of this and also that in comparison to the extra Schengen lounge how it was the poor relation.

A3 are doing something about it and also stating that things will improve as they will be able to expand their space at the B gates and in the meantime they've made a small change to who can access the A3 lounge in order to manage capacity.

May I ask, what those who are complaining about the change would like A3 to do about an over crowded lounge instead? It may be more productive than whining and whinging about the change.

I think the A3 move is a sensible one and am pleased about it because the numbers in the lounge are out of control and no one gets a decent experience under those circumstances.

Xandrios

They have severely densified their seating (the recliner style seats) some time ago already. It used to be much more spacious in the past, having fewer seats per row and not these 'islands' of seats in between. Granted, the food and amenities were a lot worse back then as well.

GUWonder

The Goldair lounge further “densified” the seating after November 2022?

The lounge crowding situation and the costs A3 is going to incur from this “solution” of sending people over to this Goldair lounge will add to the airline’s business case to make A3 elite status acquisition/retention even more costly for A3 program members.

BRITINJAPAN4

Indeed, the LH lounge as very typical LH, a good selection of both food and drink !!

nk15

It is great news, only single Golds and J pax…I hope they enforce it.

Cookoovaya

Fantastic news.

I was there this morning. They have set up a stand outside where they give vouchers for next door.

I have to say that the lounge was great (about time) on what typically is a ‘zoo’ with a kindergarten.

I also spoke with management earlier this week and ‘enhancements’ to the M+B are on the way it seems.

AlwaysFlyStar

Very annoying as we all know changes will be announced with no notice. Even when I understand the changes they make, I can't stand the way they don't give any notice.

GUWonder

“No news is good news” to me when it comes to “enhancements” in this space. And worse yet is when the “enhancements” come with the news being sprung on customers with immediate hit.

giorginho

Nice to hear that it's back to a normal state crowd-wise. Since next time we're all flying in business class I'll finally be there this summer (with both our 2-year-olds ​​​​​​).