wanderlustFL

I am thinking of booking a Delta One itinerary for travel in Sept 23 that requires a 6 hr layover at JFK. However, I have heard of constant crowding at the existing Sky Club in T4 so a long layover w/o the new Delta One lounge sounds very unappealing. Does anyone know if the new lounge is scheduled to be open by early Sept next year? A quick web search found no mention of an opening date other than one article saying "by Dec 2023". And, if that is really the case, who knows when it will actually be ready.

Adelphos

No line today. Mimosa in front of me. Arsenal on TV. Saka just scored. Good day so far 😀

matchbox20_is

There was a big line yesterday. Maybe 30 people in the normal line, which was depressing, until I realized I got a medallion upgrade to D1 and could join the other line which had about 10-12 people.

bgriff

They are now saying early 2024 for the D1 lounge. So Sep 2023 is almost certainly a no. The second Sky Club by the A gates should be open by then, which may relieve crowding a bit ... maybe.

It depends what your alternatives are, but while any 6 hour layover is not great, I am not sure that 6 hours at the JFK Sky Club is hugely worse than other options. Yes, it will be crowded, and you may have to wait a few minutes to get in (but you've got time!) and you may not find the best seat when you first get there ... but with that much time you'll be able to grab other seating options as they open up. NY weather in September is often lovely so you could also spend time on the Sky Deck, which is rarely full.

ETA: Didn't notice this was an old post before I responded so I assume you have long since made up your mind

CptnInc

I tried to visit the lounge in T4 for my 4hr layover on 1/15, but even the medallion line appeared to be approx 30min. As a DM + paid lounge member + flying on paid TATL D1, I found this to be wholly unacceptable.

I was able to access the Virgin lounge without any trouble. It's lit like a cave and the showers are aligned with what I'd expect in a low security prison. Despite the Virgin lounge being empty, I decided I'd rather go somewhere that had the lights turned on and found an empty restaurant in the terminal to burn time in instead.

It was quite an adjustment to go from the efficient and clean ZRH to the 3rd-world grime, slime, and disrepair of JFK T4.

rylan

Its unfortunate how T4 is being utilized as it appears it was never properly designed to accommodate the volume of traffic that is in and goes through the terminal.
And, same with the skyclub now that they killed T2. I am not expecting a noticeable difference in crowds/lines come Feb 1 either.

Adelphos

It would be helpful for people to post times when they talk about lines of 30 minutes. I fly out of JFK a lot - I have personally only been in a line once, and that line moved in about 7 minutes. I don’t deny there are long lines - but it would be good to know how often they occur and when.

On 1/22, I found no line at the SkyClub. I entered at around noon.

The one line I encountered was at around 6 PM for an 8 PM departure to Barcelona this past September.

I’m very happy T2 is being replaced - the terminal was old, with less attentive F&B outside of the clubs and a lack of variety of lounges. I rarely faced check in or security waits at T4 of any consequence. Usually when I go to JFK, I am through security within 5 minutes, stop by the Centurion Lounge, then proceed to the SkyClub as it is closer to departure gates. Much better experience than T2.

The T2 lounge did have good bartenders though.

CptnInc

It was around 5-6pm on 1/15 when I saw the line.

Adelphos

I guess not surprising given all of the TATL traffic departing at 66 PM, 7 PM, etc. D1 club is sorely needed during this time.

I try to leave out of JFK as late as possible when flying TATL. So 8/9 is the earliest I try to leave. I am usually in the 10 or 11 PM flights when going to LHR. I don’t recall an issue last time I flew to London (aside from the bad flight delay)

ijgordon

Well I think unless you’re going to LHR, CDG, or AMS, you don’t have a choice about what time your flight is.

CptnInc

I was actually returning from ZRH. The Virgin lounge allows access to D1 arrivals as long as they're international.

It used to be a 2hr layover for me before heading to BOS, but then DL dropped that flight. I originally wasn't even going to pass through JFK, but then AF dropped my ZRH-CDG flight and the only CDG-centric alternative involved a 6:45am departure from ZRH. I'm a morning person, but a 6:45a flight exceeds my limit for a vacation trip.

bgriff

Recent T4 B club data point on a Thursday, I entered around 12:30pm with no line (and no stanchions set up in the terminal) and lots of empty seats. When I left at about 2, empty seats were scarce and they weren’t yet rationing entrances, but the stanchions had been set up and they were clearly getting ready to do so.

The trouble with peaky JFK demand is that, in addition to the huge wave of European departures in the evening, there are lots of people who arrive from Europe in the early-to-mid afternoon and then wait in the club for domestic connections, or vice versa, and a lot of those connections can be 3-4 hours or longer since Delta doesn’t have the same kind of frequencies on domestic routes out of JFK that you get in ATL (and even when they’re available, many people may wisely choose not to book short JFK connections given the risk of disruption). So the peak strain on the club is longer than you might expect it would be just thinking about when local NY traffic would be using it for TATL departures. I expect the future D1 club will likewise be very busy from ~2pm until late for the same reasons, assuming arriving D1 passengers with domestic connections are allowed to use it.

Adelphos

Delta is basically tripling the lounge capacity (A gate club, Delta One) and just added the Virgin Clubhouse for SkyTeam elite. From what I can tell, flight capacity isn't really changing, and Delta is actually getting more strict on club access. Shouldn't club crowding dramatically improve once the two new SkyClubs are open?

bgriff

I’m not expecting it will noticeably, since the T2 club was lost (and was never full but was often busy) and the lines likely turn off some potential customers, so there is latent demand that will come back once there is more room. Plus the Amex sign-up juggernaut continues unabated (after all, Delta flight counts at JFK haven’t increased since 2018 or 2019, when there was no line, either). But we will see.

We may hopefully get back to the point where lines to enter the clubs are not a daily standard occurrence, but I’m not expecting they will be uncrowded.

richarddd

We have a 6:00pm flight to MAD next Monday in D1. How insane is it likely to be? When should we arrive at JFK to get there in time to have some dinner before the flight (get through security, walk to lounge, get in, etc)?