Review: Emirates Lounge San Francisco Airport

I find this to be one of the best lounges at SFO, especially for the food they serve and that it really is a business class lounge. Since you are about to get onto a 14+ flight when you visit this lounge, it is a nice way to welcome you to the EK experience. And if you are an EK Skywards gold or platinum, this lounge is especially nice if you have to tough it out in economy all the way to DXB. Yes, there are nicer lounges all around the world. But here in the US, there are not many lounges that outrank this one, especially as this is an out station lounge that services one flight a day. I have never seen it overly crowded and the food is always high quality and fresh. Drink selection is limited, but once again, on par or better thann most lounge offerings. I do agree that the decor looks a bit like a mid 1990's office.

Sorry you didn't mention the ease of boarding the aircraft. I believe we were
able to exit the lounge and immediately walk the bridge to the A380.

I'm a United 1K flying out of SFO terminal 3 and International and can't remember the last time I spent more than 5 minutes in an SFO security line. Your experiences with CAS have certainly been different than mine. The only bad experience I've had at SFO security was actually with a CLEAR employee, strangely. Unlike TSA, CAS employees can be terminated for poor performance, so they tend to be less arrogant.

Thanks for the review Tiffany. The lounge furniture looks straight out of a late 90s stock photo...

@ EthaninSF -- Hah! That's the perfect description of the decor!

@ Mark -- From San Francisco?

@ AndyF -- Oh, to be fair, I've had short queues on the other international pier (where UA and the Centurion lounge are). This pier seems to always be bad for some reason, I might be hitting it at the wrong times.

It seems that airline-alliances are waning lately, but this review reminds us of why they exist.

This lounge, along with similar outstation lounges around the world, have to cost Emirates a fortune to operate; the fact that it's only used for one flight a day is jaw-dropping. I understand that Emirates is known for their exclusivity, but they need to find other ways to get additional revenue out of this under-utilized operation.

@Tiffany - it really depends on the time of day you're in International Terminal A. Sometimes it's a nightmare and sometime's it's a breeze. Either way, I'm not how they are training the contractors in the pre-check line but it's the place where I have most consistently experienced longer waits at pre-check than the people in the normal or priority screening lanes. Guaranteed 1 out of 3 times I'm at that concourse and there's a backup of 7 people with a slow screener at pre check compared to 6 passengers for 3 agents at the general screening line.

I think part of the problem with International A in general is the mixture of carriers. You've got 1-2 times a year leisure travelers traveling on Alaska, JetBlue, Sun Country, Volaris, and Wow and the families going on their annual or regular long haul international trips. Mostly no fault of their own but the general unfamiliarity of folks to the screening process and the lethargic competence of the contractors lead to longer than necessary waits at International A.

I've never noticed the sign before that's behind the alcohol. "Consuming alcohol may cause cancer," etc. Does everything cause cancer in CA?

Thanks for the nice review. We'll be taking the same flight in F in less than a month and had little info about this lounge. Now I know what to expect.

@ Ken -- Pretty much. Baked goods now too. Starbucks is the best about it because they have a super passive-aggressive sign up next to the notice that basically says "state law makes us put up this sign because your legislators don't understand chemistry."

Baked goods now too? Things are getting a bit crazy.

Pretty soon they will have signs when you're walking on the jet bridge in CA airports that "breathing CA air and drinking CA water may cause cancer."

YES.

@ Mark -- That's awesome, and I'm super jealous. Our gate was a ways down from the lounge, so maybe they generally use a closer one? That's a great feature!!

Tiffany, somewhat by your review...I was blown away by the Emirates Lounge at SFO. Especially the food and beverage selection. But then again, I guess I am used to domestic and contract lounges.

*Somehat surprised. I guess I can't go back no edit my comment?

Your gut is wrong about privatizing being more effiecent and cost effective than government services.

"the private contractors cost more in 33 of those 35 jobs. On average, the service contracts paid private employees 83 percent more than the government would pay a federal employee doing the same job (and that’s even taking into account health care benefits, pensions, and so on)."

Here's a link to the Washington Post article on the study:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/study-privatizing-government-doesnt-actually-save-money/2011/09/15/gIQA2rpZUK_blog.html?utm_term=.19b7e32d50ad