Whilst the Concorde Room has its critics, I always look forward to a visit there. After all, what’s not to like with unlimited Laurent-Perrier Grand Siecle champagne that retails at over £100 a bottle, bespoke BA Gin and the BA175 cocktails.
The Concorde Room at Heathrow T5 is only open to customers travelling First class and their most frequent flyers known as ‘Gold Guest List’ which you need an eye-watering 5000 tier points a year to achieve. There are only 2 proper Concorde Rooms; the one at Heathrow and the New York JFK Concorde Room. The JFK Concorde Room is also earmarked for refurbishment in 2018 along with the other JFK lounges. There are also a number of Concorde bars and dining areas such as the Singapore Bar and the T5 Arrivals dining area.
British Airways has just revealed the finished refurbishment of their Concorde Room at Heathrow Terminal 5. They took taking inspiration from the best of British Design and wanted to create a feeling of luxury.
The terrace is one of the nicest places to sit in my opinion, as it overlooks the runway and has a light and airy feel. It has also now got new sofas and loungers. I think this area is one of the best parts of the refurbishment with the feeling of individual rooms giving more intimacy. I was also really pleased to hear that BA are providing mobile phone chargers in the Concorde Room too.
The refurbishments included re-upholstering furniture, and adding new feature pieces to the room, all of which are illuminated by hand-blown glass lighting with bone coloured linen lamp shades featuring ochre silk linings. My favourite piece is the duck feet lamps which goes with the slightly quirky horse lamps in the Galleries lounges. I wonder where I can buy one!
Carolina Martinoli, British Airways’ new director of brand and customer experience, said:
“We believe our customers will love the new look and feel of the Concorde Room, in particular, the terrace that we have re-designed to create a private oasis in the middle of a bustling airport.”
Overall I think the lounge looks much better from the photos. I have to say I really like all the new lamps although some of the furnishing fabrics are not really to my taste from the photos. I think the effect they were aiming for, one of British sophisticated elegance with a touch of quirkiness, is what they have achieved. I am expecting to do a review in December on my next trip from T5 so I will bring a full report of how it looks in reality.
What do you think of the pictures? Have you been to the Concorde Room at Heathrow? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below or on social media.
UPDATE: I have now visited the new Concorde room and you can read my review of the refurbished Concorde Room here.
4 comments
Such a shame that the toilets,washrooms and daybeds have not been upgraded. The toilets were filthy when we visited a few months ago. The daybeds are always fully booked but I don’t know why.
Totally agree. I really hate the toilets in the Concorde and First lounges. I think the terminal ones are better apart from the lack of Elemis products! I’m guessing it is because they couldn’t do it overnight and would have had to do something more radical like closing part of the lounge. I do believe there are longer term plans for the lounges to be completely redone but they haven’t said anything publicly about timescales.
I was there last week and to be honest, I only noticed some of the changes because I had read about them on here! The furniture and design updates, while nice, were not desperately needed. The dining room is really showing its age and feels shabby and unclean, as well as the aforementioned toilets and cabanas still being an eyesore. It was really busy at the time I visited, 8am on a weekday and service was hurried and abrupt. All in all, not the experience I’d expect from an FC lounge.
Not that I visit this lounge often 🙂 but is there a timeline for a full revamp?
There has been nothing official about a timeline yet but there were rumours that it could be 2018/19. I suspect that BA will not do much until they have thought through what their future concept for First as Alex Cruz hinted they needed to look at this. If they cut back the no of routes with first and or seats it would ease the busyness of the lounge. I am headed there myself week after next so I am looking forward to spot the difference!
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