Airport lounge experience set for a change
NEW DELHI: Soon, you won't need to queue up to access an airport lounge. To boost lounge experience, several operators and credit card-issuing banks are planning direct business, removing aggregators on whose machine a flyer swipes their credit card to enter a lounge, reports Saurabh Sinha.
They plan to launch an app where lounge access can be booked in advance. Then the passenger just needs to swipe their card at the lounge gate and be seated in a particular area as per their credit card status. "A flyer can log in with an OTP and link all his/her credit cards. The app will check whether he/she has lounge access available and then allow them to book a lounge at the airport they are flying out of," said an official.
"For banks, lounge access is among key features of premium credit cards, but the experience at present is not good. So hard-selling premium cards using this as a USP becomes difficult. Full-service airlines are also upset that their premium passengers have to queue up in the same line with a credit card," said a source.
However, many flyers have credit cards therefore the lounge use is no longer limited to those flying full-service airlines. Operators are planning to have separate areas for premium card, business, first class flyers to offer better experience at big lounges. However, two leading lounge operators said, "Aggregators have warned us of stopping lounge entry if they are removed from the business. We are taking legal steps to prevent that.
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