In September 2023, we learned that Chicago Midway Airport (MDW) would be getting an airport lounge, for the first time in its 96-year history. There’s now an exciting update, as this lounge will be opening tomorrow.
Continue reading: Chicago Midway Airport Gets First-Ever Lounge: The Club MDW
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
"I have to imagine crowding will be a serious issue, and that there will frequently be a waitlist to get in." --> it's crazy how many lounges this line is applicable to these days. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather find a quiet part of a terminal with no free food or drink versus a 40 minute waitlist for a very crowded lounge with some free food and drink
In my opinion, the value of lounge access has gone way down in the past few years because of overcrowding. Credit card companies did a great job getting people to sign up for their cards by, in part, offering lounge access as a perk but in the process ended up drastically devaluing that very perk.
Chicago is a loser's city. No industry--you name it--has a strong presence in Chicago.
Top law firms (Cravath, Wachtell) - DC & NYC
Top universities (Harvard, Princeton) - Boston & NYC
Top tech companies (Google, Meta) - SF & Seattle
Top private equity and venture capital - SF & NYC
Top hospitals and healthcare - Boston & NYC
Top arts and entertainment - NYC & LA
Top restaurants - NYC, LA & SF
See a pattern? Every high achieving young person from Chicago has to move to a coastal city. So the only adults left over are losers.
To add onto this I would really, really appreciate grab and go 'lounges'. No seats, no nothing, just some snacks and drinks in a fridge someone lets you open if they scan your priority pass card and stuff. Probably be really cheap to operate too
I just walked by Concourse 2 at MDW and amazingly there is already a line for this lounge!
Cheap to operate from what perspective? Labor, sure, but an operation that gives away food and drink to the most widely used lounge network with a turnover of 2min per guest? Not cheap.
Except nowadays you can easily work for companies like Google and Meta, or major PE firms (Thoma, Vista, etc.) and live in Chicago with a far lower cost of living. But this really has nothing to do with this blog...
There are plenty of important businesses and universities in Chicago. Maybe it’s not as cutting edge as Silicon Valley, but you’re completely ignoring Northwestern University(#6) and the University of Chicago (#11), as well as major corporations like Allstate, US Foods, United Airlines, and Walgreens. Chicago is also considerably more affordable than the big costal cities.
At least now we know that Paul Weiss is in the “lower law firm” category, as opposed to Cravath and Wachtell…
Imagine claiming to be “rich” and not realizing Chicago is almost as important as NYC when it comes to finance/investments
As someone who lives near but not in either city, I gotta say Chicago > NYC any day. But I'm sure most Chicagoans don't really care to explain to others why their city is better, last thing they want is the same cost of living crisis in all of the other cities you've mentioned.
Paul, I think you're going to have to tell us where you live to have any valid standing on this issue.
Hope it's better than the lounge at my home airport (and also Southwest hub), the Club BWI. It's awful.
I'm excited about this. I'm from Chicago and the only other Priority Pass louge is at O'hare. It is not a good lounge, but it gets the job done. It is small, maybe holds 25-40 people on a good day. Needless to say it is super basic WITH A LIMITED supply of snacks and drinks. Also, the carpet and all of the furniture needs to be replaced ASAP. With that being said, I welcome a new Priority Pass lounge to Chicago.
The one at O'hare (Swissport Lounge) kind of has that vibe, as there a few seats, but fully stocked snacks, drinks, and sandwiches to go. It needs a complete revamp, so this would be a great idea for them.
From the location description, it sounds like the club has replaced the stupid White Sox-themed restaurant where Harry Caray's originally had their MDW outpost. That would explain the 76 person capacity. For some reason I thought they were building it above the food court. While Southwest is the major airline there, it is such a small footprint that there really isn't another place airside to put it. The mezzanine only holds the chapel, and in the last major restaurant renovation they ended up taking out moving walkways to place more locations.
Your comment is nonsense. Chicago is home of the CBOE. Options trading runs through Chicago. It is home to 15 Fortune 500 companies and is at the crossroads of American rail and manufacturing. It is the hub for both United and American in the Midwest.
During peak times, it seems like it can be difficult to find a quiet part of the terminal at MDW. Prior to other low cost airlines coming in, I used to go to the C Gate area for this. However, now that airlines have started to use them, there does not seem to be a great place for it at MDW in busy times with delays.
I am excited about the new lounge but am wondering how often it will actually work to get in with such a low capacity. I was hoping that they would build the lounge above or below the regular level to create new space.
Also massive Professional Services presence in Chicago (serving companies in the region mind you). And headquarters do not matter for professional services. BCG and Bain are headquartered in Boston yet the Chicago offices are larger (in terms of actual consulting staff). McKinsey is New York but they have a huge Chicago office.
Professional Services are huge in Chicago - RSM, BDO, Baker Tilly, Grant Thornton and Crowe all have their HQs there.
Not sure there's much to the fact that Southwest's hubs don't have lounges. Historically Southwest based their flights in small, underutilized secondary airports and avoided the major ones. Not surprisingly, those airports didn't have lounges. And because these remain small airports, there's not much space to add some massive lounge.
Heck, until the big terminal renovations, there was barely a place to get some food at mdw nevermind a proper lounge!
Hahahaha. Let me guess. While you were at Northwestern none of the supposedly easy Midwestern farm girls paid you any attention because they could smell your east Coast douchebaggery from a mile away. So now you take out your butthurt by crapping on the city that have you your education.
I won't bother rebutting your troll post but will note two things: Londoners laugh at New Yorkers who think they're the center of the world. And also, neither Harvard nor Princeton are in NY. I guess whatever you think you're tops in, basic geography ain't one of them...