It’s an exciting time for Air New Zealand. The carrier has recently introduced a new business class, which is being retrofitted on existing Boeing 787s. On top of that, the airline is upping its lounge game, though it’ll require some patience.
In this post:
Air New Zealand Lounge Auckland getting a makeover
Currently Air New Zealand has a single international lounge at its Auckland Airport (AKL) hub. The Koru Lounge is pretty good quality (with great coffee!), though does get very busy during peak periods. That’s why it’s exciting to note that the airline plans to significantly expand the footprint of this lounge, as it will be nearly doubling.
The lounge is currently around 2,000 square meters (21,500 square feet), and the footprint will be increasing by approximately 1,700 square meters (18,500 square feet), for a total size of 3,700 square meters (40,000 square feet).
Not only will the lounge be larger, but it’ll have an all-new concept. Once the expansion is complete, it will have a new “Elite” section, exclusively for Air New Zealand’s Business Premier customers, along with members of Air New Zealand’s Airpoints Elite tier. Meanwhile Star Alliance Gold members and Airpoints Gold members will be invited to use the standard part of the lounge, which all travelers use nowadays.
It’s not yet clear if premium cabin passengers on Star Alliance partner airlines will have access to the Elite space or not, as I imagine those details are still being ironed out. The Elite section will be located inside the entrance to the lounge and to the left, while the rest of the lounge will be located to the right.
The lounge will also get a full makeover, with the new interiors celebrating “the beautiful sights and textures of Aotearoa, brought to life through colours, materials, furnishings, and carefully curated lighting and art.”
Both lounge spaces will feature fit-for-purpose spaces to suit travelers’ needs, including improved business areas, comfortable areas to relax, a dedicated family area, a barista bar, and more. The new Elite section of the lounge will feature an elevated experience, with more space, an expanded food and beverage offering, and views across the apron and runway. It remains to be seen how “expanded” that food and beverage offering is. Could we see a la carte dining, or is that a step too far?
The concept of creating a “lounge within a lounge,” or of creating multiple tiers of lounge access, is nothing new. Just look at United, for example — there are United Polaris Lounges for eligible business class passengers, and United Clubs for others. United is hardly along with that, though. Carriers like Air Canada and Singapore Airlines also have separate facilities for select premium travelers.
Here’s what Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran had to say about the updated lounge concept:
“We’ve designed our new lounges around what our customers told us matters most – more space, more seating, and the ability to choose how they spend their time. Across both lounges, total seating capacity will increase by 70 per cent, providing a significant boost in comfort and capacity for international travellers passing through Auckland.”
“We know our customers value having spaces that are suited to their travel needs, whether that be a quiet business area that allows focus, room for families to play before jumping onboard a flight or a social space to enjoy a coffee before departure.”
Timeline for Air New Zealand’s lounge changes
When can travelers look forward to this new lounge setup? Construction is expected to start in early 2026, and will take place in two phases. The current lounge will remain open with reduced capacity while work is completed on the new lounge space.
Once the new lounge is open, the current lounge will be redeveloped, and it’s expected to open by late 2027. Of course it’s important to emphasize that airport projects rarely run on time, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this slip further. By the time the new lounge setup is complete, Air New Zealand should have retrofitted its entire Boeing 787 fleet with the latest business class.
The airline is still deciding how to handle lounge access while the work is ongoing. Several months ago, the airline sent a survey to its most valuable customers, asking what people would prefer for lounge access while the work is being performed:
As you may have noticed, our Auckland International Lounge has been experiencing periods of high demand so we’re going to be undertaking extensive construction work to improve our lounge and make your experience with us even better in the future. It’ll mean a lot of disruption, but we know you’ll think it’s worth it, and will be making sure you still have access to a dedicated space before you fly while construction is taking place. We’d like to know if you’d prefer an option to stay within our current lounge space while construction is happening next door, or whether you’d prefer to prepare for your flight somewhere free of construction activity.
Bottom line
Air New Zealand is planning major changes to its international lounge in Auckland. Starting in early 2026, the lounge is expected to undergo a significant expansion, which will take until the end of 2027 to complete. With this, we’ll see the lounge capacity nearly doubled, and on top of that, we’ll see the lounge get an all-new design, which should feel quite elevated compared to the current setup.
While the new lounge should be great when it finally opens, expect that it’ll be quite unpleasant until late 2027, when all of this work is done.
What do you make of Air New Zealand’s Auckland lounge plans?
Amex should do the same with the Centurion Lounges. The current lounges are for everyone. And, the proposed "sidecar" lounges are not restricted in terms of time but in terms of meeting a spending threshold on the Platinum Card. Say, $25k per calendar year.
Having some kind of distinction between lounges is fine, indeed you can tailor the spaces to the type of traveller you're expecting (frequent flyer lounges having more space for working or catching a bit of sleep, business class lounges with more elaborate dining and a bit more sense of occasion).
What I find problematic is having multiple tiers of lounge for people flying in the same class of service. If I buy a UA business...
Having some kind of distinction between lounges is fine, indeed you can tailor the spaces to the type of traveller you're expecting (frequent flyer lounges having more space for working or catching a bit of sleep, business class lounges with more elaborate dining and a bit more sense of occasion).
What I find problematic is having multiple tiers of lounge for people flying in the same class of service. If I buy a UA business class ticket, accessing one lounge or another will depend on whether I'm departing on/connecting from a codeshare, whether my destination falls into their definition of 'international' or whatever (which, depending on how they're feeling that year, might exclude PTY but include LAX etc). I can do without that nonsense - if you want to have separate lounges, please make sure that passengers don't need a full IATA certification and/or PhD in postmodern geography in order to know where to go.
Let’s face it, Star Alliance gold is as common as muck. It’s hardly surprising that airlines offer them the bare minimum that they’re contractually obliged to, and reward their own biggest-spending customers with exclusive facilities. SQ does this very well at Changi, and personally I’d like Qantas to do it at MEL and SYD too with non-QF OW emeralds.
That's not the case, LH/LO and until recently SK [used to] reserve their best lounges for *G flyers. I believe that Turkish have very similar offerings and only split people for crowd control purposes. Lots of the lower-tier lounges (e.g. SQ or LH business at LHR) are absolutely fine and their main difference is that they're more crowded/less exclusive than the top offering (in that example, the SEN lounge and the part of the Singapore...
That's not the case, LH/LO and until recently SK [used to] reserve their best lounges for *G flyers. I believe that Turkish have very similar offerings and only split people for crowd control purposes. Lots of the lower-tier lounges (e.g. SQ or LH business at LHR) are absolutely fine and their main difference is that they're more crowded/less exclusive than the top offering (in that example, the SEN lounge and the part of the Singapore one reserved for F pax and possibly top SQ elites).
"I believe that Turkish have very similar offerings.."
When I see someone employ that wishy-washy phrase 'I believe..' I know right away that person doesn't know what they're talking about and haven't done their research, but they're hoping the listener will still believe them anyway...Slack!
I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover that I haven't done ANY research on this.
My belief is the product of having visited the two lounges at different times, and I didn't even have a clipboard on me to check the vintages on the wine labels!
Looks very nice.
What's interesting is that NZ is taking opposite of the usual approach, giving the better lounge to J customers rather than elite customers. I don't follow the logic. Then reason why for example LHG gives the SEN lounge access to elites is to give status some value even when flying in business (although one could argue that the difference between the J and SEN lounges is minimal these days) and also to collect the lounge...
What's interesting is that NZ is taking opposite of the usual approach, giving the better lounge to J customers rather than elite customers. I don't follow the logic. Then reason why for example LHG gives the SEN lounge access to elites is to give status some value even when flying in business (although one could argue that the difference between the J and SEN lounges is minimal these days) and also to collect the lounge "upgrade" fee through *A system.
With the NZ proposal, individual purchase matters more than long term business. That's weird.
There is no usual approach.
LH does one thing, AC NH SQ TK UA does the opposite. Or maybe there is.
Because J customer pays their bill not cheapo frequent flyer.
If you're Gold and in J, you have nothing to worry about.
If you're not in J. Your might be loyal but you're not their best customer.
For the part of the world NZ operates in, this is the usual approach. Business + highest elite level = best lounge, 2nd highest elite level (in this case equivalent of *Gold) gets the standard lounge. Exact same set up as QF over the ditch.