Being able to board from the lounge straight onto your aircraft feels quite luxurious. You go directly from a hopefully lovely ground facility straight onto your flight. This saves you having to walk to the gate, saving time and effort.
It’s a rare enough thing, and it used to be available when Concorde was flying. Pampered passengers could go directly from the Concorde Room at London Heathrow Terminal 4 onto their supersonic service. Where can you do this today with British Airways?
Board From The Lounge In San Francisco
British Airways have recently completed a total refurbishment of their San Francisco lounge. Happily, the ability to board from the lounge still remains, however only for certain services.
Chicago, Boston and… Belfast City!
People flying out of Chicago O’Hare also have the opportunity to experience a little bit of luxury. Just like San Francisco, there is a restriction. Only people in the First lounge board directly and only on services operated by the Boeing 777 and Boeing 747.
Overall Thoughts
Being able to board from the lounge is not guaranteed. Sometimes the aircraft will be at a different gate, but when possible you will be able to do this with BA at the above airports.
I find it to be rather nice to be able to go from lounge to the aerobridge without having to walk miles. It really does add something to the whole airport experience.
Have you ever boarded directly from the lounge to your flight? What other airlines offer this and at which airports? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via Jean Delisi on Pinterest.
San Francisco lounge image via British Airways.
Pretty funny you can’t actually do this at all at their hub.
Yes, it is a bit of a shame, but hey, it is what it is! Thanks for the comment!
It is a shame that at Dulles, where so many other international airlines offer this service (as I recall, ANA, Lufthansa, Turkish, Air France, and I think a few others but can’t remember…maybe Virgin and Austrian…and a few of the daytime flights that use partner lounges) that BA is unable to board directly from the lounge. Gate B42 used to be First Class only but is now used for all Group 1 boarding when the boarding method changed in early 2018. I’ve seen it where the Group 1 line is 30+ people deep. The separate jetway for First Class boarding is still used except for 787-9 flights.
Interesting that so many are able to offer this at Dulles. Were the midfield gates designed with this in mind? I wasn’t aware it was so many. I guess a Group 1 line of 30 people might be better than using a gate for what, ten people? Still, it does change the exclusivity a bit, that’s true. Thanks for the comment!
The A/B concourse at Dulles is an interesting and unique place (quite a wonderful airport to depart out of for an intercontinental journey):
-most of the international gates are dual jet bridge equipped
-most of the the international gates are directly connected to a lounge
-there are quite a few airline specific lounges that only operate one dedicated daily flight
-the concourse is underutilized. It is practically dead after the early euro departure wave.
It is clear that the concourse was built with direct lounge boarding in mind and has been expanded but not significantly renovated since it’s opening. The concourse was originally built in 1997 so it is interesting to me how so many airport terminals built after that in the USA were not built in such a way to support direct lounge boarding.
I always enjoy flying from Dulles, once past security of course. I wasn’t aware most had dual jet bridges and about the lounge connection. I wonder what the future holds, because clearly they’ll want to use the asset as much as they can. Very interesting stuff!
I miss being able to board Cathay flights directly from the BA first class lounge in Chicago. I imagine that the gates were shuffled so that BA could board their own passengers directly instead.
I’d say you’re right there. Though it could have been a matter of flight timing. I mean, if the BA flight is not there and Cathay are, why not use it? A question for someone else though! Thanks for the comment.
You’ve forgotten Boston
I have indeed, I’ll add it in now. Thanks for the reminder 🙂