Questions and Answers

Lucky,

With Los Angeles International building a [URL=’http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-new-airport-terminal-20170227-story.html’]new Midfield Concourse[/URL] that will add 12 gates, 2 serving A380s, and “… 750,000-square-foot terminal filled with lounges, retail and dining concessions…” do you think we’ll see an expansion or redo of a [URL=’https://www.skyteam.com/en/lounges/’]SkyTeam lounge[/URL] there? Currently Star Alliance is at the top of the lounge hierarchy at LAX with their lounge. As you can attest, the KAL lounge is… not great. I can’t think that this sits well with ST as they are just behind *A with 11 airlines flying out of TBIT; *A has 13. Do you think we’ll see a SkyTeam branded lounge pop up there? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Thomas

It’s certainly a possibility. Lucky did a post about LAX TBIT lounges, found here: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/11/21/best-lax-lounges/[/URL]

SkyTeam only has a handful of self branded lounges around the world and none in the US so it’s definitely an opportunity and they could stand to use a better lounge at LAX since the only current option is KAL’s lounge. Whether or not we’ll actually see one, no one knows. Furthermore, I doubt we’ll hear anything about it until closer to the completion date of the lounge and it also depends on the mix of airlines that will be using the MidField concourse.

Well, keep in mind that there will soon be shuttle service between the Delta facilities in T2 and TBIT, and that Aeroflot will be going to T2 and Aeromexico is already there, so that takes some of the burden off.

Of the other SkyTeam carriers that will still use TBIT, you have:
[LIST]
[*]Air France
[*]Alitalia (uses Etihad lounge)
[*]China Airlines
[*]China Eastern
[*]China Southern
[*]KLM
[*]Korean Air
[*]Saudia
[*]XiamenAir
[/LIST]
Based on that mix, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a SkyTeam lounge in TBIT. An Air France/KLM lounge seems more likely, but I think it would be hard to justify a large SkyTeam lounge.

To compare, when the SkyTeam lounge in London T4 was built you had many of the above airlines (and no EY lounge for AZ to use), plus Aeroflot, Delta, Kenya Airways, and so forth.

I agree it would be nice though!!