British Airways Galleries First Lounge Johannesburg Review

April 23, 2018

British Airways Galleries First Lounge Johannesburg

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TL;DR
The Lounge:
The Design:
Dining:
Shower:
Walking to the Gate:
Landing Thoughts:

TL;DR

The British Airways Galleries First Lounge Johannesburg is a solid option if you are flying on a oneWorld carrier out of JNB. Although it is a good lounge, it still does not meet the standards set by their lounges in Boston, JFK or even Newark EWR. I would still recommend it over the Priority Pass lounges at JNB.

The Good: Good food options and a clean shower. It is very quiet and a peaceful place to stay.

The Bad: No tarmac views, and small narrow hallway architecture.

The Noteworthy: It has better coffee than the Bidvest Lounge, and better food. The shower was spotless.

The Lounge:

After walking from the Bidvest Premier Lounge, where I had spent about 30 minutes taking photos and having a cup of coffee, I walked to the other side of the lounge mezzanine floor. There you can find the South African Airways Lounge, Emirates Lounge and British Airways Galleries Lounges. There is one lounge for business class passengers and oneWorld Sapphires. The other one is for First class and oneWorld emerald passengers. I was able to access since I was flying in First Class and oneWorld emerald.

The Design:

The lounge is basically one long narrow hallway that opens up at the end. There are way more chairs than there will be passengers. Most of the chairs in the lounge look out to the duty free shopping area. By the entrance there are newspapers from all over the world.

Dining:

The lounge has a very comprehensive salad bar, like, very very comprehensive. I was very impressed. There are also some hot food options. Next to the hot food, is the coffee machine and the desserts. The desserts looked good and the coffee was meh by my standards, but sooo much better than the one from the Bidvest Lounge. On the other side of the dining area is a self serve bar, with cheeses and fruit. There are also beers, water, juice and soda. I did not see a wide variety of wines there.

Shower:

The lounge has two showers, which are shared with the business class lounge. They are kept spotless, and are stocked with Elemis Products. Water pressure was a bit of an issue, but the temperature was warm very quickly, so no issue with hot water.

Walking to the Gate:

The European gates are also about a 15 minute walk from the lounge, so I recommend leaving a bit early to get there. On the way, you can get a view of a ton of awesome aircraft, from SWISS to SAA.

Landing Thoughts:

The lounge is pretty decent place to spend time. The food was good, and the salad bar was amazing. I would recommend the lounge for any oneWorld traveler, but I would still like to compare it to the South African Airways counterpart in front of it.