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The Guardian
29-07-2025
- The Guardian
Airport lounges cement the class system. And the food's not even that good
Summer, I've been told, is travel season. From about May to August, we're all meant to be flinging cash at airlines, hotels, overpriced restaurants with watered-down Aperol spritzes, and whatever new wonder drug is supposed to make our bodies moderately palatable for display at the beach. The social pressure to go somewhere (anywhere) during summer has only gotten more pervasive since social media began its clumsy, knifepoint home invasion into our brains. Our Instagram and TikTok accounts are just free advertising for the travel industry. 'Gosh, Spain looks nice. But maybe Mexico City is more chic these days?' It doesn't matter where you go, as long as you go. Travel seems more socially necessary than ever, even while the toll it takes on the environment gets heavier and the prospects of being allowed back home get grimmer. Travel is not healthy for the planet, and it's not healthy for your mental state. But, according to the New York Times, it is delicious. Airport lounges across the world are investing in better food, fancier accommodations and other perks like 'being left alone' and 'a functional shower'. You can have access to posh hideaways like the Delta One Lounge or the American Express Centurion Lounge for a price (either credit card fees or a long, expensive flight to a place you don't necessarily want to go). Awaiting you are opulent buffets with food from celebrity chefs such as José Andres and Kwame Onwuachi, and open bars with elaborate cocktails on offer. Most things in these lounges are free, but there are always extras for those who are truly irresponsible with their money. The Delta One Lounge at New York's John F Kennedy airport offers dollops of caviar for $85. At most of these places, you can get actual champagne, rather than the bathtub-flavored grape water they have on tap for losers like me. They should give you a free button to wear with every purchase that says 'I can afford the good stuff' – so everyone knows you have no student loan debt. All of this is meant to help airlines and credit-card companies maximize profits for their avaricious stockholders. They will charge an exorbitant amount of money for well-heeled passengers to, say, get their feet rubbed by a nude stranger, but if you can't afford such a luxury at the airport, you can get naked and rub a guy's feet for free. An airport is now like the condo building from JG Ballard's novel High-Rise, where our ossified class system manifests itself in a massive concrete structure that divides us based on income and accident of birth. The lower floors are occupied by tradespeople, the middle floors by artists and educated strivers. The top floor is reserved for the truly wealthy and the landed gentry, who sneer at the lower floors and expect fealty. The airport is similarly stratified. It's not just one lounge per airline. Now, the mind-bogglingly decadent Delta One Lounge sits near the decidedly middle-class Delta SkyClub, where the food consists not of caviar or succulent roast pork, but a melange of vaguely local fare (at Detroit's SkyClub, I recently turned my nose up at the wettest casserole I've ever seen, paired with a white dinner roll smothered in glistening butter, which I assume is a midwestern delicacy with a funny name like 'Gristlepassage'). The SkyClub is an attainable simulacrum of luxury, with free magazines and a hot chocolate bar. These middlebrow lounges are routinely overcrowded, because the barrier to entry is lower. In the Delta One Lounge, which I cannot afford, I assume the exclusivity means that more often than not, it's just you and a manservant named Longbottom whose only job is to carry your bags to and from the lavatory. The Delta One lounge is like a beacon of contentment (or an obnoxious tease, depending on how jet-lagged I am) when I walk past. I turn into Oliver Twist at the sight of a Delta One Lounge, begging for a crumb of lobster before my connection to Salt Lake City. I know envy in a way that makes me feel like a child deprived of screen time on a long drive to Yosemite national park. Surely this sort of class cold war can't sustain itself forever. In High-Rise, conditions in the building deteriorate – elevators stop working, trash chutes clog, and electricity fails regularly. As the physical structure falls into disarray, so does the citizen population. There are riots, assaults, murders and the eating of a dog. I could see this happening at Los Angeles international airport (LAX) if the Buffalo Wild Wings runs out of honey mustard – throngs of unwashed masses re-enacting January 6 on the unsuspecting patrons of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse. All for a spot of caviar. You might be wondering, though: is the food as good as the New York Times claims? Is it actually worth setting fire to a public place for a taste? In short, yes. Also, no. You see, the airport lounge is only as good as the food outside it is bad. It's a microcosm of how our class system perpetuates itself. As things grow more dire for the lower class, the middle class is driven to consume even more, as a signal to the world that they are, in fact, better. The deeper the hole gets beneath you, the more desperate you are to climb out. I am so eager to avoid having to swallow a limp hoagie at the LAX Jersey Mike's that I will spend money I shouldn't for the privilege of a slightly firmer sandwich in an airport lounge. Is the food demonstrably better at the Centurion Lounge at Heathrow than it is in the main concourse? No – it all probably gets squirted out at the same sludge factory. But it makes me feel special, because someone is being paid minimum wage to take my plate when I'm done eating. While half-asleep, dehydrated and full of flight-related anxiety, I can't even tell the difference between good and bad, right or wrong, fabulous or fetid. I am a yawning cavern of need, hoping to be filled up with whatever greasy carbs I can find. I had a perfectly adequate chicken tinga at the LAX SkyClub recently, which satisfied me until I woke up in a cold sweat over the Atlantic Ocean nine hours later. I likely would have responded to it more negatively if I had eaten it out of a paper cup next to a Hudson News while a dog in a gym bag silently farted a few feet away. Airlines, like every other big business, have figured out that the packaging is more important than the product. It's about the emotional response people have to what you're selling. The lords and ladies on the top floor of the metaphorical high-rise of our society have deigned to offer up a Disneyland re-creation of civilization, where we are treated with dignity rather than herded like lemmings over a cliff made of rubbery chicken. As was once said: 'Let them eat cake (as long as they have a Chase Sapphire Rewards card).'
The Guardian
29-07-2025
- The Guardian
Airport lounges cement the class system. And the food's not even that good
Summer, I've been told, is travel season. From about May to August, we're all meant to be flinging cash at airlines, hotels, overpriced restaurants with watered-down Aperol spritzes, and whatever new wonder drug is supposed to make our bodies moderately palatable for display at the beach. The social pressure to go somewhere (anywhere) during summer has only gotten more pervasive since social media began its clumsy, knifepoint home invasion into our brains. Our Instagram and TikTok accounts are just free advertising for the travel industry. 'Gosh, Spain looks nice. But maybe Mexico City is more chic these days?' It doesn't matter where you go, as long as you go. Travel seems more socially necessary than ever, even while the toll it takes on the environment gets heavier and the prospects of being allowed back home get grimmer. Travel is not healthy for the planet, and it's not healthy for your mental state. But, according to the New York Times, it is delicious. Airport lounges across the world are investing in better food, fancier accommodations and other perks like 'being left alone' and 'a functional shower'. You can have access to posh hideaways like the Delta One Lounge or the American Express Centurion Lounge for a price (either credit card fees or a long, expensive flight to a place you don't necessarily want to go). Awaiting you are opulent buffets with food from celebrity chefs such as José Andres and Kwame Onwuachi, and open bars with elaborate cocktails on offer. Most things in these lounges are free, but there are always extras for those who are truly irresponsible with their money. The Delta One Lounge at New York's John F Kennedy airport offers dollops of caviar for $85. At most of these places, you can get actual champagne, rather than the bathtub-flavored grape water they have on tap for losers like me. They should give you a free button to wear with every purchase that says 'I can afford the good stuff' – so everyone knows you have no student loan debt. All of this is meant to help airlines and credit-card companies maximize profits for their avaricious stockholders. They will charge an exorbitant amount of money for well-heeled passengers to, say, get their feet rubbed by a nude stranger, but if you can't afford such a luxury at the airport, you can get naked and rub a guy's feet for free. An airport is now like the condo building from JG Ballard's novel High-Rise, where our ossified class system manifests itself in a massive concrete structure that divides us based on income and accident of birth. The lower floors are occupied by tradespeople, the middle floors by artists and educated strivers. The top floor is reserved for the truly wealthy and the landed gentry, who sneer at the lower floors and expect fealty. The airport is similarly stratified. It's not just one lounge per airline. Now, the mind-bogglingly decadent Delta One Lounge sits near the decidedly middle-class Delta SkyClub, where the food consists not of caviar or succulent roast pork, but a melange of vaguely local fare (at Detroit's SkyClub, I recently turned my nose up at the wettest casserole I've ever seen, paired with a white dinner roll smothered in glistening butter, which I assume is a midwestern delicacy with a funny name like 'Gristlepassage'). The SkyClub is an attainable simulacrum of luxury, with free magazines and a hot chocolate bar. These middlebrow lounges are routinely overcrowded, because the barrier to entry is lower. In the Delta One Lounge, which I cannot afford, I assume the exclusivity means that more often than not, it's just you and a manservant named Longbottom whose only job is to carry your bags to and from the lavatory. The Delta One lounge is like a beacon of contentment (or an obnoxious tease, depending on how jet-lagged I am) when I walk past. I turn into Oliver Twist at the sight of a Delta One Lounge, begging for a crumb of lobster before my connection to Salt Lake City. I know envy in a way that makes me feel like a child deprived of screen time on a long drive to Yosemite national park. Surely this sort of class cold war can't sustain itself forever. In High-Rise, conditions in the building deteriorate – elevators stop working, trash chutes clog, and electricity fails regularly. As the physical structure falls into disarray, so does the citizen population. There are riots, assaults, murders and the eating of a dog. I could see this happening at Los Angeles international airport (LAX) if the Buffalo Wild Wings runs out of honey mustard – throngs of unwashed masses re-enacting January 6 on the unsuspecting patrons of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse. All for a spot of caviar. You might be wondering, though: is the food as good as the New York Times claims? Is it actually worth setting fire to a public place for a taste? In short, yes. Also, no. You see, the airport lounge is only as good as the food outside it is bad. It's a microcosm of how our class system perpetuates itself. As things grow more dire for the lower class, the middle class is driven to consume even more, as a signal to the world that they are, in fact, better. The deeper the hole gets beneath you, the more desperate you are to climb out. I am so eager to avoid having to swallow a limp hoagie at the LAX Jersey Mike's that I will spend money I shouldn't for the privilege of a slightly firmer sandwich in an airport lounge. Is the food demonstrably better at the Centurion Lounge at Heathrow than it is in the main concourse? No – it all probably gets squirted out at the same sludge factory. But it makes me feel special, because someone is being paid minimum wage to take my plate when I'm done eating. While half-asleep, dehydrated and full of flight-related anxiety, I can't even tell the difference between good and bad, right or wrong, fabulous or fetid. I am a yawning cavern of need, hoping to be filled up with whatever greasy carbs I can find. I had a perfectly adequate chicken tinga at the LAX SkyClub recently, which satisfied me until I woke up in a cold sweat over the Atlantic Ocean nine hours later. I likely would have responded to it more negatively if I had eaten it out of a paper cup next to a Hudson News while a dog in a gym bag silently farted a few feet away. Airlines, like every other big business, have figured out that the packaging is more important than the product. It's about the emotional response people have to what you're selling. The lords and ladies on the top floor of the metaphorical high-rise of our society have deigned to offer up a Disneyland re-creation of civilization, where we are treated with dignity rather than herded like lemmings over a cliff made of rubbery chicken. As was once said: 'Let them eat cake (as long as they have a Chase Sapphire Rewards card).'
Hindustan Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
The Secret Group Chats Where the Rich Score Seats on Private Jets
Nick Molina was in the American Express Centurion Lounge at New York's LaGuardia Airport, chatting with a stranger about flight delays, when his fellow traveler asked if he'd considered flying private. 'She was telling me about this WhatsApp group,' said Molina, a 57-year-old investor and former startup entrepreneur in Key Biscayne, Fla. 'She offered to get me added.' Which is how he ended up in 'S. Florida<->NY/Northeast,' one of several active group chats where travelers, from the merely wealthy to actual billionaires, buy and sell seats on private flights. These invite-only chats focus on gilded routes—New York to Palm Beach, Aspen to Southern California, Texas to Cabo—and include thousands of members, at a time when delays and safety concerns have plagued commercial aviation. 'They'll go in a chat and say, 'Hey, I'm going to Aspen on August 1. Who wants to split a plane with me?'' said Peter Minikes, who runs private-jet charter company Priority One Jets. Real-estate investor Enrico Scarda, 56, sold his own jet around a year ago but has not sworn off his habit of flying private. He's a member of the same 676-person group as Molina, which operates like a Craigslist for one-percent fliers moving up and down the East Coast. Through the group, he has flown on midsize jets including a Dassault Falcon 50 and a Hawker 800. 'I guess, at first, I was a little hesitant about having a stranger meet you on the plane,' Scarda said. 'But after the three or four times that I either bought a seat or sold a seat, I realized it's all pretty much the same types of people.' Members of these chats hawk seats on their own jets to defray costs or charter planes and look for splitters. Some are simply passengers with an aversion to TSA lines. Private-jet brokers also pop in, offering their clients' inventory. That often means seats on 'dead-leg' flights—empty jets flying to pick up passengers. Kaden Green, a 20-year-old private-jet broker, is active on many of these WhatsApp groups. He's found them to be valuable tools for generating client leads. 'It's free marketing,' he said. 'It's not like you need to pay for an ad or anything.' Enrico Scarda and his family on a private jet. The real-estate investor is part of a group chat which operates like a Craigslist for one-percent fliers moving up and down the East Coast. For some fliers, sharing cream-colored cabins with strangers defeats the purpose of flying private, stripping people of the ability to take to the skies whenever they wish. 'At the end of the day, you're still scheduling your day and your travel around a pre-booked flight plan,' Molina said. Green, who estimates as much as 30% of his business stems from WhatsApp groups, recently started his own chat dedicated to private flights between Europe and the United States. Arik Kislin, an investor, started a separate 23-person 'Turks Private Jet Group' for travelers to Turks and Caicos, the British archipelago where he owns a home. What fuels these groups is a blend of penny-pinching ways and a thirst for luxury. 'I do understand that sometimes you don't want to spend $25,000 to $30,000 going up to New York, but you're OK spending three or four [thousand],' Kislin said. Scarda said most seats between New York and South Florida go for at least $2,000 in the WhatsApp group. Commercial airliners like JetBlue and Delta ferry passengers between the two areas for as little as a 10th of that. Before the pandemic, many fliers between these ritzy locales offered seats free to those in their network, according to Minikes, the charter broker. But as the private-aviation market has expanded and a WhatsApp shadow economy has emerged, charging for seats has become more customary. 'It's a tight space,' he said. 'Why do you want to be uncomfortable if you're not going to be compensated for it?' Whether these trips comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations is murky. Plane operators typically must be certified as Part 135 if they receive any money over their pro rata share of cost, according to aviation attorney Steve Taber. Part 135 is a section of the Federal Aviation Regulations, setting rules and safety standards for on-demand, nonscheduled operators. If aircraft operators are found in violation of these rules, they can face actions like monetary civil penalties, according to aviation attorney Mary-Caitlin Ray. Taber added that FAA officials have pursued Instagram accounts and Facebook groups where users sell private jet seats for profit. For that reason, it might not be worth avoiding full-body scans and baggage fees. And there are other inconveniences that even the rich can't escape. Kislin said shared private flights often end up delayed because a majority of co-travelers prefer to takeoff later. 'Well, that doesn't work for me,' he said. 'That changes my schedule.' But even if Kislin books travel elsewhere, remaining a part of these private aviation groups is valuable. For some jet-setters, it's as status-y as being a member of Zero Bond. 'It's a conversation starter, because that's how many people in the network of Aspen are in that chat,' Green said.
Mint
10-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
The secret group chats where the rich score seats on private jets
Nick Molina was in the American Express Centurion Lounge at New York's LaGuardia Airport, chatting with a stranger about flight delays, when his fellow traveler asked if he'd considered flying private. 'She was telling me about this WhatsApp group," said Molina, a 57-year-old investor and former startup entrepreneur in Key Biscayne, Fla. 'She offered to get me added." Which is how he ended up in 'S. Florida<->NY/Northeast," one of several active group chats where travelers, from the merely wealthy to actual billionaires, buy and sell seats on private flights. These invite-only chats focus on gilded routes—New York to Palm Beach, Aspen to Southern California, Texas to Cabo—and include thousands of members, at a time when delays and safety concerns have plagued commercial aviation. 'They'll go in a chat and say, 'Hey, I'm going to Aspen on August 1. Who wants to split a plane with me?'" said Peter Minikes, who runs private-jet charter company Priority One Jets. Real-estate investor Enrico Scarda, 56, sold his own jet around a year ago but has not sworn off his habit of flying private. He's a member of the same 676-person group as Molina, which operates like a Craigslist for one-percent fliers moving up and down the East Coast. Through the group, he has flown on midsize jets including a Dassault Falcon 50 and a Hawker 800. 'I guess, at first, I was a little hesitant about having a stranger meet you on the plane," Scarda said. 'But after the three or four times that I either bought a seat or sold a seat, I realized it's all pretty much the same types of people." Members of these chats hawk seats on their own jets to defray costs or charter planes and look for splitters. Some are simply passengers with an aversion to TSA lines. Private-jet brokers also pop in, offering their clients' inventory. That often means seats on 'dead-leg" flights—empty jets flying to pick up passengers. Kaden Green, a 20-year-old private-jet broker, is active on many of these WhatsApp groups. He's found them to be valuable tools for generating client leads. 'It's free marketing," he said. 'It's not like you need to pay for an ad or anything." Enrico Scarda and his family on a private jet. The real-estate investor is part of a group chat which operates like a Craigslist for one-percent fliers moving up and down the East Coast. For some fliers, sharing cream-colored cabins with strangers defeats the purpose of flying private, stripping people of the ability to take to the skies whenever they wish. 'At the end of the day, you're still scheduling your day and your travel around a pre-booked flight plan," Molina said. Green, who estimates as much as 30% of his business stems from WhatsApp groups, recently started his own chat dedicated to private flights between Europe and the United States. Arik Kislin, an investor, started a separate 23-person 'Turks Private Jet Group" for travelers to Turks and Caicos, the British archipelago where he owns a home. What fuels these groups is a blend of penny-pinching ways and a thirst for luxury. 'I do understand that sometimes you don't want to spend $25,000 to $30,000 going up to New York, but you're OK spending three or four [thousand]," Kislin said. Scarda said most seats between New York and South Florida go for at least $2,000 in the WhatsApp group. Commercial airliners like JetBlue and Delta ferry passengers between the two areas for as little as a 10th of that. Before the pandemic, many fliers between these ritzy locales offered seats free to those in their network, according to Minikes, the charter broker. But as the private-aviation market has expanded and a WhatsApp shadow economy has emerged, charging for seats has become more customary. 'It's a tight space," he said. 'Why do you want to be uncomfortable if you're not going to be compensated for it?" Whether these trips comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations is murky. Plane operators typically must be certified as Part 135 if they receive any money over their pro rata share of cost, according to aviation attorney Steve Taber. Part 135 is a section of the Federal Aviation Regulations, setting rules and safety standards for on-demand, nonscheduled operators. If aircraft operators are found in violation of these rules, they can face actions like monetary civil penalties, according to aviation attorney Mary-Caitlin Ray. Taber added that FAA officials have pursued Instagram accounts and Facebook groups where users sell private jet seats for profit. For that reason, it might not be worth avoiding full-body scans and baggage fees. And there are other inconveniences that even the rich can't escape. Kislin said shared private flights often end up delayed because a majority of co-travelers prefer to takeoff later. 'Well, that doesn't work for me," he said. 'That changes my schedule." But even if Kislin books travel elsewhere, remaining a part of these private aviation groups is valuable. For some jet-setters, it's as status-y as being a member of Zero Bond. 'It's a conversation starter, because that's how many people in the network of Aspen are in that chat," Green said.
