Review: Aspire Lounge Calgary Airport

I just went through the Aspire lounge a couple days ago. The Chinook lounge was better. I went to both because I was connecting off a domestic flight.

@lucky, I may be an outlier, but as a beer industry professional and Cicerone, I’m always curious about beer offerings in lounges. In general, I’ve found most lounges do a poor job on beer, favoring whatever international beer brands that happen to be popular in that country or area, but a few do manage to offer some well researched local craft beers, such as Alaska’s lounges and UA’s Polaris lounges.

Anyway, i know you’re not really a beer guy, but I’d love to see as much attention on beer selections as you consistently offer on wine and spirits, even if that’s limited to “The beer offerings were uninspired.” and a picture of the predictable cooler filled with Heineken or some other slop.

Based on my experience with other Canadian airports the international wing serves international flights other than US flights which have their own dedicated wing. I'm curious how many international flights depart Calgary daily. Your description of the lounge suggests they expect quite a lot of traffic.
I'm curious what the lounge(s) in the US wing look like. I'm guessing there is a lot more passengers heading to the US????

Calgary airport was designed by morons. Youre just lucky you didnt have to transfer from a Canadian domestic flight to an international one. Its over a 1.5km walk. Their golf cart solution has the capacity of like 4 people with luggage so I have no idea how they rationalized that long term. The airport is basically a big building with no functional elements. Maybe theyre expecting their economy to collapse and everyone will avoid their city? I hate transiting through Calgary.

I refuse to visit another Aspire lounge after my visit to its LHR T5 offering last month. What an absolute dump. There aren't many lounges that make you want to flee to the sanctity of the terminal but that place does.

Was this one open air to the rest of the terminal? I know the YYC U.S. bound terminal's Aspire Lounge is partially open air.

@mallthus
I'd be really interested in better coverage of beer selections as well.

How can an American have the audacity to criticise a transit process? Look at the hassle everyone has going through the USA. What an entitled primadonna you come over as Lucky.

@mallthus @david
I am too! And pricing as well, as for example @United lounges still charge for their "premium" beer, as in anything that is not Miller Lite... yuck.

I visited one of the sister lounges flying back to the states in 2012ish. They sure did up their game

@ Sam -- Can you read? I literally acknowledged that in the post and said that anything in Canada will be better than the US or Mexico in that regard. Just because there are worse places in the world for immigration doesn't mean I can't share some constructive criticism.

I just can't help thinking that WestJet has some sort of fetish for Qantas. First they buy their old 767s which were barely running. Now they've stolen their tagline - "The Spirit of Canada"... (Qantas' is "Spirit of Australia")!

@Ben

I agree that making you go and get a stamp is a waste of time. You could have entered Canada just by getting your passport stamped by the same person instead of the silly slip of paper. So there's no time advantage whatsoever. All you saved was a bit of space in your passport. As a Canadian I have no idea why Canadian airports are so bad at implementing better transit procedures. The intent seems to be there but the execution sucks.

Similar problems arise with transiting from international to domestic. For international flights originating from certain places (Europe, Japan and Australia) one can now go through immigration and then skip security and go straight to the domestic departures area in YYZ and YVR. The catch is that in both cases you have to take a bus to the domestic area, which adds a bottleneck taking about as much time as going through security.

Honestly, sometimes I think these processes are designed by people who have never traveled.

yultide -

the privilege of skipping security after going through immigration at yvr and yyz for passengers from eu, jp, oz, applies to everyone? or only to canadian citizens / us citizens / both countries permanent residents?

Just adding here to my experience in transferring in Vancouver (YVR) while on an itinerary between San Francisco and Taipei recently (with a US passport). It was better than ever - only an abbreviated kiosk entry; then shown directly to the int'l departures area. Straight to down escalators, no security re-screen, nothing. So impressed. I think YYZ is set up similarly, while YYC and YUL have been only "half-way upgraded" due to lesser volumes of third-party country transfers.

I don't understand why or even where you cleared security at YYC. You should only have had to take the elevator up from the Canada Customs Hall directly to the International Departures Level. Please clarify...

@Paul, Lucky was in transit through Calgary. He didn't need to enter Canada. the current procedure for passengers in transit is to go through OSS (One Stop Security). In his case, he talked to the immigration officer before he proceeded to the departures hall (bypassing security). If he wanted to enter Canada or happened to miss OSS, he would need clear customs and immigration before entering the country, go up to departures level and clear security again.

@yultide, I experienced OSS in YVR on the way back to YYC, and I agree it was not as seamless. I do like the bus part, although sometimes you have to wait which is not great if you're in a hurry.

@yyc

He writes:

"She then escorted me to an elevator, I went through security, and then I was back in the international departures hall."

I agree with you. The layout of YYC does not supoort this. Since he had OSS, where and why is he going through security? Something makes no sense here.

Nice lounge with great food ! The room is completely nice quiet

$1199CAD is $890US; is that the upgrade from economy or premium? If economy that doesn't seem that high.

Enjoyed this review of Calgary airport; i suspect Westjet will open her own 'branded' Westjet lounge in the future. If you have a chance, the Cathay lounge in Vancouver airport is quite pleasant. Happy and safe flights

Bit hard to take a pot at Canadian and US immigration after my trip some years ago through Melbourne airport - passengers getting off to get back on the same plane to continue to Auckland without leaving sterile airside - where we all sent through one barely functional security scanner line before ending up in a cramped gate with no seats. No time for lounges. Comments that Melbourne wasn’t ready for the whale did not go down well but were proven correct next trip when the whole area had been tripled in size and security did not take an hour or more.

But 30 mins to get a form stamped is stupidity, eh?

@capybara
I can't be certain, but from the look of it, skipping security in transit is available to everyone with travel originating from those countries. Bags are checked through to the final destination. The issue seems to be the point of origin. I transit frequently in YVR. Coming from LHR there's now no security. Coming from HKG or TPE, I still have to go through security. In YVR there's also a separate immigration queue for passengers with domestic connections.

@yyc
I've transited international to domestic in YVR in 20 minutes gate to gate, including immigration and the security check. (Admittedly, that's an all time record and not the norm.) I've also done it in about 20 minutes with the bus and an escort. (I had a rather tight connection.) I don't see any material time saving. All you save is the hassle of yet another superfluous security check.

Rare I disagree with you Lucky, but I really didn't like this lounge when flying out of YYC a few years ago. Food selection might be varied, but everything tastes atrocious. It was also very busy when I was there, during the AC European departures. The design is also very basic in my view.

I far preferred the MLL in the domestic terminal, which I was able to use even though I was coming off a US flight. I had a long connection so it was worth going to the domestic terminal just to use the MLL there.

I just flew out of Calgary a few weeks ago but back to the US so I was in the terminal for US flights. The Aspire lounge there was just as good and had the same food choices, excellent drink selection. I didn't see the nap chairs and it was a smaller lounge but a fantastic one.

I tried calling Aspire Lounge (area code 902 number) just to find out if the Calgary International Airport Lounge is open. The greeting message stated "if you are flying today, please select option 1". Selecting option 1 I got the message that the wait time is two minutes. After 15 minutes and countless recordings, I was told no agents are available.
I hope the lounge is better than the customer support line. If the number for the Calgary lounge was available, it would be better than the one central (and obviously overloaded) centre for all calls for all lounges.

Nice lounge, didn't really fit what I needed all, so skipped.
We arrived on an 8 hour layover, very tired. Was told first they had to charge us double to be there since our flight was later. We ate lunch and came back, then the story changed to "you can't come here until 3 hours before your flight", and they check your ticket. We were tired now, so this made no sense. On the plus side, the regular airport bench seats were comfortable to sleep on, so was able to get some sleep before the flight. I still don't know what the purpose of the rule is.

aspire lounge (priority pass)
VERY BASIC, slow to check you in , food is average at its best, ammenities basic, captain spiced rum is not premium fyi and in general not great service, the up side you can enter no matter what airline you fly so in airports you dont have airline lounges they win but no comparison to MAPLE LEAF or WESTJET LOUNGES, on a scale of 1-10 10 being the best id give them 2.5-3 points....with very little effort this could be a great lounge
ie mexico, prority pass does a decent job but food comes out every 15 mins not 1 time for breakfast and 1 x for lunch etc...listen too what people are saying and make the changes

I am in the Aspire Lounge at 7:30 on a sunday night waiting for a 10pm flight to London. The hot food is empty except for one item which is stone cold. The fruit is non existent. The other food looks like it's been there many hours and the staff obviously want the day to be over. What a disappointment. They are only open till 8:30 so if you are on a later flight, you are out of luck. Next time I will walk back to Area B and go to the Westjet lounge. This is a huge letdown. The lounge itself is. I let appointed but the food choices at this time are abysmal