The oneworld alliance has started the process of opening its own branded lounges. We recently saw the first lounge open at Seoul Incheon Airport (ICN), and we’ve now seen the opening of the second lounge.
Continue reading: Oneworld Lounge Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Now Open
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
The other EU OW carriers fly there too (IB, AY). Would be very nice to have a OW alliance lounge.
One thing I don't get about you Ben is then when you are traveling and in Europe, how are you able to wake up and start publishing posts at 6am local time. You just arrived in Europe, so I presume your body clock is still on EST. And you have stated before that you have a really early bedtime (I'd presume between 6-8pm), and you generally start publishing posts around 5-6am EST. So how are you able to stay awake and publish articles when it is midnight at home? (It's 2:40am here right now, but this article was published 2hrs ago)
It's called a delayed post. You can set when the post goes "live", which is (usually) at the same time each day.
Amsterdam was original planned as first opening, they want to open it a while ago but just before opening they found out they forgot the Fire suppression system open in 2 weeks told me at Schiphol
@ W -- Hah, you're very observant. The short answer is that I really suck when sleeping while traveling. I'm in Amsterdam at the moment, and slept last night from 12AM until 5AM (which is actually pretty good for me). When I'm staying at a hotel for one night, I always get up very early (as I do at home), so I can photograph the property, be the first person at breakfast (to take pictures), etc. Pure glamour, eh? 😉
@ AJO -- Fun fact, I actually don't schedule any posts. I know that's what most people do and I probably should, but I publish all my posts "live." 🙂
IB and AY are not very relevant since the lounge will be in non-Schengen part of the terminal. You can go there of course, if you don't mind passing through passport control twice (it's usually a breeze for EU citizens) but most people don't do it.
Ouch! Do you ever travel with any sleep meds? I think some non-habit forming one's would be good every once in a while if you have a very long day coming up the day after.
I appreciate your response. It's actually really interesting to learn about this. I started reading your blog as a teenager, and I was always so jealous of your travels and lifestyle. As I've grown older, I've of course seen the good and the bad, but I still find the beauty in your lifestyle. Honestly, even after learning about what your true lifestyle is like, it's still alluring to me. I think I could and would do it. But thats cause I'm a huge avgeek in my early 20s and I love airline products just as much as you!
Whether or not I could be a successful blogger and writer is another question though, to which I don't currently have the answer 😉
I just hope there will be no mice walking the window sill like in the KLM Crown Lounge near Gates F last Sunday.
That is yet another reason to avoid AMS - apart from defunct and very inefficient immigration processes and a terrible appearance otherwise.
(Two immigration counters were staffed, with a very long queue, 8 immigration officer were chatting in the room next door, e-gates were closed, when I asked a poor guy managing the line what those 8 are doing he just replied „working for the government“…..
When I asked one of the officers why the e-gates are not open he said that they have not enough staff! Funny guy. Half of the line would have been processed in a matter of minutes without the need for any staff.
#avoidAMS!
The lounge situation is pretty dire at Schiphol. The Aspire lounge was pretty terrible and overcrowded, and the only lounge available for non-Skyteam lax flying non-Schengen. More lounges are desperately needed there, so this is a great development.
The aspire lounge is the only non-skyteam lounge in the non-Schengen part of the terminal. If that were to be taken over by oneworld there would be no lounge options for *A in that area. The Star Alliance lounge is only accessible when flying within Schengen.
So..flying UA to the US means no more lounge access at AMS? Or TK to IST. And a few more that I can’t think of probably..
I've been trying to find some reviews on the OW lounge at Incheon but so far, all I've seen are those press releases from multiple websites. Will wait for your review.
The entrance looks like some sort of dystopian futuristic portal. The inside looks nice enough though.
There’s still an Aspire lounge in the non-Schengen part of Schiphol. That one was closed for remodeling as well and got opened today right after the oneworld lounge.
Video is out of the new OneWorld lounge Amsterdam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqHPDlE_e60
Enjoy!
The design makes me want to claw my own eyes out, frankly. I think they’ve got a bit too experimental. It’s probably not easy to design a neutral space for a group of airlines rather than one branding scheme, but Aspire and No.1 lounges have managed it without making themselves look like a dystopian Kubrick film set.
I guess it’s a positive development given the lounge situation at Schipol, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather just head to a cafe with less punishing design before my flight…