Review: The New American Flagship Lounge New York JFK

Lucky,
do you know whether the renovated JFK flagship lounge is going to offer a la carte dining at some point?
That will be a significant improvement.

Do you have to be traveling internationally to use the Flagship Lounges or as long as you're a OneWorld Emerald/Sapphire member you should get access?

@Tom
LFirst set of bullet points at top:

"American will be introducing Flagship Dining, where international first class and A321 transcon first class passengers will have access to a la carte dining at Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York"

Or did you mean for the Hoi Pilloi non-First customers?

To clarify: the lounge experience for Emerald elites traveling in (international) First Class will be identical to that of Sapphire elites traveling in Economy Class?

Seems a bizarre devaluation of the experience of the highest-revenue passengers. Does any other three-class OneWorld airline do that at its hub?

I'm not sure I understand your criticism of the espresso machine, I think that's a $20-25k machine (same as the cent lounge in LAS)

Corporate, boring, and crowded. A real missed opportunity.

I love the semi-private couches. They are genius. I was in an Admirals Club in PHX the other day that had them. They don't take up a lot of space, and yet offer a lot of privacy. They also have power outlets on them.

Used this lounge on a Saturday night in January. It wasn't crowded at the time, and for filling in 4 hours between a HEL/JFK 10 hour flight in Y+, and heading to Vegas that night, it was an improvement over the old flagship lounge at JFK.

The easy access to showers was appreciated, and given my next flight was going to be meal-less, I did take advantage of the hot buffet. There was a reasonable lamb dish, which was a pleasant surprise given I don't regularly see lamb on menu in the US generally.

Obviously not a patch on other oneworld first class lounges offered by Qantas in SYD & MEL or Cathay's in HKG, but I would say that it is around the same as BA's offering in LHR, and streets ahead of BA's JFK first lounge, which I'd equate with Malaysia's first lounge in KUL.

Lucky,

Let me get this right, as a Plat for life, I am sapphire. When the Flagship lounge in Miami opens, does this mean that I can use it on a mere Y tik to BZE? (I know the Caribbean is not "international", but I've qualified for Admirals club going to BZE, which qualifies as international.

If so, that would be a major improvement for me.

I was there on March 17,22017. Here's my take on it. http://salsaworldtraveler.com/2017/03/20/american-airlines-jfk-international-first-class-lounge-progress-report/

Also those highback quad seats are popular right now as Delta uses them in it's new lounges as well.

If EXPs have no access to the First Class dining areas in the new lounges, then this will truly be a major devaluation. Right now EXPs have access to the First Class Dinning area at DFW (food is similar o the current set up at JFK) which is the only First Class Dining area AA has right now. It would be ironic if AA EXPs have access to Cathay Pacific, Qantas and Etihad first class dining but not the same thing on AA's own system. Or perhaps that is a hint of things to come.

Why does American Airlines insist on being the leading airline when it comes to confusing lounge access rules?

Agree - not sure how they will accommodate the crowd. I have been in the Flagship Lounge in JFK several times since the new one opened, and it is very crowded already in the early evening.

Maybe AA is trying to match both Star Gold and UA Polaris. Star Gold's (50K level) get Senator's Lounge access and UA business passengers get Polaris.

I asked the bartender at the LAX Admirals Club where the new FL will be and he said its the main bar room that currently faces TBIT. I was surprised to hear this - I had assumed it would be in the same space as before but just redone. It seems much like JFK they want the room with the best view to be the FL

Seriously. That's the best they could do with renovation and redesign? The furniture isn't bad, but the sterile-looking, all-white decor reminds me of a hospital cafeteria.

The buffet and bar isn't too inspiring even if the food and booze selection is decent enough. Presentation is everything these days. I doubt anyone will be fawning over the design on Instagram. A first-class lounge should have menu service.

How many toilets and urinals were there in the men's bathroom? My biggest complaint with small-f flagship lounges is there are never enough stalls or urinals.

does first to mexico/latin america/caribbean have access? I know they often don't count these countries as "international"

@Lucky, while I am not a fan of super-automatic/self-service espresso machines, what didn't you like about the Franke SA espresso? The model is your photograph appears to be a Franke FM850, which I believe, starts at $22,500 . . .

Sorry kids EXPs in coach won't have dining service.

Overall a downgrade unless you're in First and get the dining service, and even then you're subject to the over crowded setup when you're not eating.

@FNT Delta Diamond As I recall here are about 3 urinals and around 4 stalls - more than before at JFK - but could have had more. Unfortunately the stalls do not have standard, full doors - just normal stall doors (with a barn door design) and they open at the bottom and the top.

I was unimpressed with the restroom. F lounge restrooms should offer more private stalls and urinals. The wash basins are directly across from the stalls.

Another issue is that the paper towels are hidden above the sinks - not obvious where they are. Plus no trash cans, you need to carry the used paper towel to the space by the exit door.

But the showers are a BIG improvement over the old ones at JFK. So no complaints about the showers.

The FS lounge is nice and new looking - but not overly impressive.

I think that this is very necessary. I recently had a flight on Cathay in business class. JFK to HKG. Guess what lounge. No British Airway lounge..... Admirals club. Yuck. Talk about an insult for departing Cathay business class customers. No free food (except pretzels) pretty departure. AA drastically needs to do something so this is at least a stop gap measure.

I've been to this lounge 3 or 4 times since the renovations, over the span of a few months, and for that whole time the wifi has been abysmal. Sometimes doesn't work at all, and when it does the speed is 3G-ish. Unacceptable.

@Lucky How about those who are arriving on a one world international business class award ticket and connecting onward AA express flight (no F cabin). I seem to have read a note that said that would be included in the access rules this Spring a la the Polaris lounge in ORD. Has this been implemented yet?

Been there twice in 2017. I like the design and the champagne 🙂
But too many obnoxious fliers talking loudly on their cellphones as if they were in their living room

@lucky....another gin drinker! YAY!! Lately I've been drinking Botanist....quite good. Aviation and Hendricks make me happy too.

Glad they got that coffee/latte/espresso machine because it wasn't there a couple of weeks ago.

As @Mike says above, the wifi is super slow in the lounge.

I didn't find the crowd to be that bad when I was there... albeit on a Monday evening from 4-6pm in mid February.

Wi-Fi is terrible. Hopefully a temporary situation.

I assume the current food buffet is a temporary set-up and that the lounge itself will be bigger when the construction is fully complete. I assume the area behind the wall where the buffet is hides the rest of the lounge, which is still under work.

That pretty much looks like the JFK SkyClub, which is one of Delta's nicer lounges, but doesn't try to sell itself as international first class specifically. If you hadn't said what this was, I would have expected that it was a redesigned, slightly enhanced standard Admiral's Club.

Those who think Ben is whingeing about the pathetica coffee machine should bear in mind that -:

A) your country almost universally has truly AWFUL coffee (I mean filter? Really? No wonder the Italians laugh at you), and

B) many lesser lounges like Virgin Australia and Qantas have human baristas in their basic business class domestic lounges (technically below these lounges' level) with cafè grade coffee.

He called it. Sorry, but expensive in this instance doesn't necessarily equal GOOD.

@Nathan. Yes, Euros are laughing at us as they line up at Starbucks worldwide for their favorite American brand. C'mon dude, stop making this a cultural thing...we are really not that much different and, quite frankly, I can get a crappy or wonderful cup of coffee in Europe (or anywhere) as well.

Not to say that I also agree that AA and most U.S. carriers could do a better job with coffee offerings.

American is a joke, the polaris lounge is much better... AND it is business class.

This "flagship" lounge from AA is supposed to be First Class. This looks like a medium level Business Class lounge. Like what an admirals club should be like... NOT a "flagship" First Class only lounge.

Randy is right. I'm amazed at how many small-f flagship lounges -- by that I mean an airline's primary lounge at a hub -- don't have enough toilets or urinals for the amount of passengers in the lounge.

For example, the relatively new Delta lounge in Atlanta -- Terminal B, right? -- only has four urinals and four, maybe five, stalls. On most mornings and evenings there is a line of seven or eight gentlemen waiting to use the facilities. That's simply unacceptable. The lounge is plenty big enough for Delta to have installed more than one bathroom.

Moreover, I'd rather an airline just have 12-14 enclosed one-person toilets that either gender can use. You see this increasingly in Europe.

yeah a little bit nicer than when I was there in October and felt like i might pick up MRSA showering there lol.

The lounge stays open for the Cathay Pacific JFK-HKG 1:35 AM flight, despite the sign on the door stating otherwise. The lounge is overrun with noisy children. And for some odd reason the staff are quick to collect the drinks but not quick to collect the mess on the tables. Three times the drink disappeared but the mess on the table remains after 4 hours in the lounge. The lounge does have a luggage storage area. The lounge does not close for 2 hours but the staff are quite busy tearing down the lounge. The staff are quite disinterested overall.