This is shockingly bad and sad news. I really do feel for the staff who have always been fantastic. The lounge itself was always a haven of peace and quiet before the flight down to London and I always enjoyed spending time there. It's a real shame that BA has decided to close the lounge. It's another kick in the teeth for customers.

Really sad to see this happen, it’s been worrying me for a while about the relationship between Newcastle and BA, just worried now that we will never see a night stopper again.

It is rather ironic that BA have a large call centre presence in Newcastle.

Strange thing is the last flight North and the first flight South are normally quite busy (if not full). Surely parking will become an issue overnight at Heathrow at some point so overnights will be needed.

I really hope they do keep the frequency. Even for someone that was doing the flight weekly and working in the Victoria is still worked out the same as travelling by train (if not quicker).

The trains arent going to get much quicker from the North East for quite a while and the early/late flights are needed for some connections.

Even Durham Tees Valley; my closest airport, (or what ever they call it on Wednesdays in September) is picking up flights including to London City.

Are they regular users of the lounge?

This is quite incredible news - and very sorry to hear about the staff who are potentially affected. NCL lounge is a great space and friendly staff - I just don’t understand the logic given in normal times it always seemed busy to me.

I will send a note to GGL tomorrow with some feedback.

No but management are known to travel up and down.

Flights were often used by crew in the North East to position themselves for work also.

It was also the main IT location at one point (not sure how much IT still exists in the North East)

Honestly the bigger irony to me is that this is C-W-S' home airport, and I expected that if any BA-operated lounges outside of LHR survive it would be NCL.

I'm not sure why you view it as incredible. Pretty much everything is 'at risk' right now, and even with that in mind, a regional lounge closing is very much at the credible end of the credibility spectrum.

As intimated upthread, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if NCL were at risk of losing BA service altogether, much like LBA was.

Personally I can’t see the route being axed altogether. LBA never had a nightstop and during its final year only had 10 flights per week. NCL has a lot more flights, so they’d permanently cut the frequency before axing it.

Very disappointed to hear this news. Always enjoyed our visits to the BA lounge and the staff are so pleasant. The Aspire lounge often turns guests away as it is often full, so can't imagine it could cope with the extra BA guests. It also doesn't compare with the BA lounge which is usually a haven of peace and such a pleasant start to our holidays. Good luck to all the staff.

Are you suggesting that the new IAG CEO is a former IB CEO therefore he is doing what he did at IB and saw it as viable, therefore must work and is now implementing that strategy (via Cruz) within BA as his first set of decisions? :cool: ;) :p

Personally, if this is part of his initial ‘okay we need to do this as I’ve done it before so it works’ strategy for helping Alex Cruz & IAG save costs then I really fear for what else Alex Cruz and Luis G decide and sign off, or should we say...sign away.

I understand it’s desperate times and these can call for desperate measures but it’s not all short term. There is and will be a long term. It’s not all end of world stuff.

The only advantage to the Aspire lounge is that it offers hot food. A sausage stottie in the morning is definitely a step up from BA's offering. However, I do agree with what others say about the capacity issues. I have been refused entry on more than one occasion on the basis that the lounge was "full" (although when looking in the window it was anything but). It is indeed used for Emirates passengers, and priority is also given to those who have pre-booked and paid. If you're trying to get in on the back of a Priority Pass membership you are seemingly bottom of the pecking order.

The difference with LBA is Leeds isn't that long a train ride from London. It will be even shorter come HS2 if they branch off to that line. NCL is much further so the time saved by flying is much bigger for now.

Places like SXB lost all their Paris flights when the TGV came along, and AF now codeshare with rail to get people to connect long-haul via CDG (I don't know if you collect XPs though). If and when HS2 starts, I'd be surprised if MAN still gets many flights. Of course it would be even easier if HS2 extended to LHR and LGW via Thameslink but that may yet happen.

Why would HS2 make any difference? There are currently 3 trains an hour from Manchester to Euston, and it takes around 2 hours. HS2 may knock 30 minutes off that, but you still end up at Euston.

MAN flights have been reducing over the last few years because of the non-BA options that are available from MAN. The direct US flights have been decimated over the last year, and it wouldn't surprise me if BA tried to pick up some of that once things start to normalise.