Provisions By Admirals Club: American Grab & Go Lounge Concept Opens

I love this. The meaning of an airport lounge has materially changed over the last 10-20 years. They're no longer a reliable calming oasis catering to the business traveler who wants a drink. They're now often at capacity, full of obvious leisure travelers (this mix-shift of course reflects the traveling populace at large), and the only real benefits are:

fast free wifi
free food

If I'm on a tight connection and unable to wait in line to get into a lounge, I still want free food. Good on UA for starting the United Club Fly concept and on AA for stealing the idea (good artists copy, great artists steal).

Doesn’t DL have something similar in ATL?

While I like the idea I have to wonder if this is going to work out. I can see people now loading their bags up with 2-3 days worth of food. On Saturday at BOS there were some breakfast bars out and before they could be taken away to make room for lunch items some woman grabbed every one of them and shoved into her bag. Unfortunately that's where society has devolved to.

Sometimes the connections are so short in Charlotte like 35 minutes and something like this would come in very handy because you don’t have time to really gather stuff up in a regular club

This is especially good being way out on the A gates--it's a long trek to the C/D or B clubs, especially if you're going in and out of A. Bravo, AA!

This looks promising - the food in the all day menu pic looks fresh and healthy. Whereas UA's grab-n-go is prepackaged (Covid-era), less healthy food items off the back of a Sysco or Shamrock foods truck.

I think DCA and PHX would be good locations to roll this out next. Those airports I’ve noticed have a lot of shorter connections so a concept like this might make sense there.

Yes, Delta has a Grab & Go SkyClub at ATL Terminal B.

The access rules sound a little different though as you can only go to the SkyClub OR the Grab & Go within a 3 hour period - i.e., if you go into the Grab & Go, you are prohibited from entering any other SkyClub for 3 hours.

They have not expanded the concept, so it seems like this was designed specifically as a reliever for the ATL Terminal B SkyClub.

That's a poor policy. Imagine having a tight connection, so you stop at the grab and go. Then your connecting flight is delayed and you wish to head to the Sky Club, but are turned away. I'd be pissed

Someone posted that the food and beverages are at a manned station on FT. Makes it harder to load up for multiple days

"Several weeks ago ..." - considering your use of several, Ben, this could mean 2 and 50.

You literally used "several" to mean "a few". Man, you love that word, yet have no idea what it means.

Where? They could convert the lounge at the high A’s because it’s the right size and downstairs, but wouldn’t that be a downgrade of sorts? Given the segmentation of the T4 concourses, you likely won’t be able to go out of your way with a short connection, especially if you booked the 25 MCT special.

Could make sense if they got something on the corner near A1 or B1, but there’s no space.

Noticed this location when I transited CLT… yesterday, and remembered reading about it. Missed it by a day!

It looks incredibly tiny from the outside but if people aren’t lingering I guess you don’t need much space.

Several is defined as more than two and ‘less than many’. Since he wrote about this the first time 4 weeks ago, I’d argue that’s a fair definition.

Also, this is the hill you want to die on?

Yes, that's exactly why I never use the Delta Grab & Go. While the ATL Terminal B SkyClub sometimes has a line, I have never encountered a line at the T, A, C, D, E, or F Delta SkyClubs and the FlyDelta App displays the crowd levels of all SkyClubs so you can decide which one to go to. So, there is no reason to "risk" going to the Grab & Go, in my experience.

Not some random fangorl in the comments defending Ben. You know he's taken, right?

This is a good first step. I think more lounge pressure will be alleviated once CLT gets its inevitable Flagship Lounge.

No big surprise really since the profit is now with hawking credit cards instead of the actual transport of pax & cargo .... And, the decline of the business traveler versus leisure oriented...

Remember when the AA Exec card AF changed to $595 and they said premium foods are on the way and they’re going to uplevel the experience? The most I saw was fresh-made guacamole, and they directly credited that as a short-term thing to the credit card.

I now usually skip the AA lounge and head to AS instead…

I don't think the food is amazing, but it's clearly an upgrade from what was there previously: charcuterie, rotating hot entrees at both breakfast and dinner, etc.

I don't think the food is amazing, but it's clearly an upgrade from what was there previously: charcuterie, rotating hot entrees at both breakfast and dinner, etc. Also - the guacamole wasn't part of the upgrades - it had been there for a long time before the upgrades were announced.

Who cares if they announced it 2 or 50 weeks ago? It's fine to say it was announced several weeks ago.

Ah, wasn’t aware of the guacamole station. And perhaps it’s personal taste, but the shrimp kimchi fried rice (LAX, SFO at least) was there for many months longer than it should have been. Tasted truly awful, and I love Korean food. ;_;

I think everyone has their personal experience but “is the food hot” is a long way from “does this compete with an Amex lounge’s catering”? Their marketing definitely indicated the latter.

The CLT Admirals lounge is embarrassing. When a lounge is full, I would rather grab and go to the gate (empty gate area)...so this is fine.

AA HQ is full of soccer mom types and grandma's/pa's who have middle America taste...and quite frankly, very uncool and always two decades behind the times. This looks like a Panera Bread (someone's idea in Dallas of hip and cool).

I do not dislike Dallas. It's just not globally hip or cool.

Ughh, even though I continue to dislike Delta, they come across as fairly cool (thanks even more to Virgin). DL is always giving cool vibes, and never middle America Panera bread/Lululemon soccer mom/hot grandma.

Anyway, its an improvement nonetheless, and enough nice talk about DL.

Fine concept, but it makes the lounge situation in Charlotte about 2% less dire than before:
- the very large club between C and D, which is a terrific time warp back to 1997 and is always crowded and filthy
- the club on B, which was renovated but has the layout and ambiance of a railroad galley
- nothing at all on the perenially miserable Concourse E, which after several extensions is now a full 15 minute walk from any other club

I don't think anyone can dispute that Charlotte is the nation's worst connecting hub... right up there with Denver Stapleton in the 1980s and Detroit in the 1990s. Both of those eventually got fixed, but CLT and AA seem content to keep jamming more flights on larger-gauge aircraft through a complex that is collapsing under the strain.

I spent 30 minutes in Provisions today. The space isn’t much to speak of but great service and solid healthy food options.

I visited Provisions last night. Even at 10:30pm, it was completely full. (The standard lounges had signs outside saying no day passes were being accepted because they were at full capacity, leaving Provisions as the only options for those with a day pass.) I'll be the contrarian to the unqualified claim that they are offering healthful options. I guess it depends on what you're comparing it to. Maybe better than bacon-wrapped hot dogs with white bread and Cheetos, but not what many would consider healthful. I chose the salmon kale salad, since it appeared to be the most healthful option. It was just fair. The greens were limp and wilted, and the salmon had literally zero flavor--the most bland salmon I've ever eaten.

After eating, I turned over the container and saw it listed the nutrition info. Despite its simple, healthful appearance, the salad had an ingredient list a mile long, full of all kinds of artificial and otherwise questionable components, including Polysorbate 80, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Benzoate, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Calcium Disodium EDTA, and artificial smoke flavoring. Lots of ingredients banned by Whole Foods, Sprouts, Fresh Market, Earth Fare, and other more health-focused grocery stores. Moreover, the Caesar dressing, which is where many of the artificial ingredients were found, also relied more on soybean oil than olive oil.

Even though it was a not a huge salad by any means (it looks bigger in the photos because it's on a wide plate, but it's only about 1/2 inch tall), it had 650 calories, 47g of fat (61% DV!), including some trans fat, 9g saturated fat, 1250mg of sodium (54% DV), and--somehow--zero fiber. I would say they have deliberately engineered the salads to give the visual appearance of being healthful while constructing them with the lowest quality ingredients that still make the top-line salad name technically true.

I also noticed they had a disproportionately large number of staff compared to the number of guests and size of the area. It appears they are actively monitoring to make sure people don't shove their luggage full of food. Fair enough, but it means even the sandwiches and salads have to pass through a gate keeper, while several other employees are just standing around the perimeter monitoring. The employees were very pleasant, so there's that at least.