Too much travel

Yes, the direct lounge-to-jetway boarding from the BA lounge was very convenient (in fact, it still is if you're flying SFO-LHR). I had that the other week in DXB as well, but the Emirates lounge is so enormous that even though you board directly from the lounge, you may need to walk halfway along the length of the terminal to reach your appropriate gate!

bbmatt

I have a long layover between the LAX-SFO (arrive SFO around 11am) and SFO-HND flight (i'll try to find a better lax-sfo flight, but strangely, there are no award flights later in the day that work for me)

Question, has the CX lounge been denying OW elites on other OW flights based on "capacity" control"?

sfosuw

CX lounge only opens for CX879 and CX873. Per their winter schedule, CX879 departs at 1155AM. The lounge should be closed by the time you arrive at International Terminal and got through TSA. The lounge will not open until 8PM-ish for the 1110PM departure of CX873. I believe JL1 leaves around 7PM? You are better off staying at T2's AA lounge until JL check-in opens around 3PM-ish, but JL Sakura lounge is nothing to write home about. BA Terraces Lounge might be a better option at that time of the day.

bbmatt

damn, i forgot about the winter schedule! It looked like 2pm departures so i figured the lounge would be open for a bit, enough for me to duck in for a bowl of noodles

im hopeing/expecting a later award flight to pop up to SFO, or hell, even a LAX-NRT flight to come up for that day too, but just thought i'd ask! i love the cx noodles

QRC3288

I realize I'm banging this drum a bit often, but:

1.) SFO lounge is still packed. In SFO lounge last week, fully loaded 77H for CX873 (midnight departure), completely fully lounge. Nearly every seat accounted for and people sitting on the floor. I don't spend much time in here anyway, but it bums me out because I presume this means there are no immediate plans to add capacity to/from SFO. The "new" SFO lounge is (to me) such a downgrade from the old BA lounge IMO. I used to not mind if I showed up at SFO with an hour or two to spare before the flight. Now, if I've got an extra 15-20 minutes after check-in I go to that concourse cafe right before security and sit until the departure time is nearer. The lounge is just a madhouse.

2.) ex-SFO capacity will eventually decline as 747s go away. Eventually CX is going to have to transition SFO to an all-77W service. I saw on here LHR and FRA are losing it. I gotta assume it eventually happens to SFO. Although, maybe given the capacity reasons, SFO is one of the last places to lose 747 service? But when this happens, that means capacity on the route will be even less. I don't know the yield #s for SFO but in my experience the flights, particularly CX873 is always packed and tough to get J reservations for.

3.) Does anybody have any idea if there are any plans for an increase in SFO flights? And if so, I presume CX will have to adjust their lounge situation there? I always presumed a 3x daily SFO flight would include a second midnight departure like LAX. But with the lounge situation, that would be simply be a disaster. Anyone know CX's thinking here? Or is a 3x daily to/from SFO just not in the cards?

AA_EXP09

CX would need more O/D to support 3x daily, as AA is weaker in SFO than LAX/JFK/ORD.

QRC3288

CX has an agreement with Alaska, according to Lucky over at Onemileatatime. This summer Alaska moved over to SFO's international terminal on the CX side, and Alaska has an agreement with CX where Board Room members get access to the CX lounge.

I guess CX really milks these things for revenues. I wonder how many people have Board Room access - hopefully not too many?

The SFO lounge is already bursting at the seams when either of CX's two flights are full. But hey, what's not to like about people spread out on the floor.

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...ge-access-sfo/

SFO_FT

Best approach is to write to the SFO station manager to complain. They know about the problem and e-mails or letters of complaint will help the problem get escalated up the food chain. CX can, for example, employ more dense seating so as to minimise the number of pax that need to sit on the floor. More easily, during peak periods CX can have lounge-eligible Y pax use a different lounge (that CX would have to pay for). But, if enough J and F pax complain ...

AA_EXP09

Asahi is a better beer than the crap in the AC....

cxfan1960

It may be OK if there are no guest privileges (like Board Room Member accesses to Delta Sky Club).

The midnight CX flight was not really affected when I flew in September.

QRC3288

IME it's hit or miss around whether or not the flight is full. Agreed sometimes it's not packed to the gills, but IME those times the flight wasnt full either. When all 6 F seats and 56 J seats on 77H are full of revenue (non ID) pax, plus however many CX and AA elites sitting in EY, the party in the SFO lounge moves to the floor.

I think the space up there in that lounge area is badly constrained and I just don't see a solution.

The dumbest thing I don't understand about the SFO oneworld lounges is why there are TWO of them - BA and CX. It's not like SFO has a lot of oneworld flights from that intl terminal to begin with. I think there is a daily LAN flight from that terminal, plus 2x BA and 2x CX. I have to imagine all of us would've benefitted from some type of cooperation between BA and CX to upgrade the existing BA lounge, which was considerably larger and had lounge boarding, instead if CX branching off and making its own too-small-for-one-full-plane version.

I don't know the details of airline lounge politics but it seems odd to me.

JALPak

Excuse me, there's Sakura Lounge and JL001 too

QRC3288

ahh, sorry to forget! it's even worse than I thought. so there are 3 separate oneworld lounges in what in essence is 1/2 a terminal at SFO, serving a grand total of 6 int flights! 1x JAL, 1x LAN, 2x CX and 2x BA.

Seems totally inefficient to me.