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oneworld’s first European lounge opens in Amsterdam
The oneworld® alliance has launched its first fully branded European lounge in Amsterdam, providing a new space for travellers. The BA lounge closed during Covid and never reopened, making it an ideal location for a new European oneworld lounge.
The new oneworld lounge opens a month after the world’s leading airline alliance unveiled its first
premium lounge at Incheon International Airport, Seoul, in January.
Also situated in the same area with a joint entrance is a new Aspire lounge.
The 473 square-metre lounge offers a wide choice of seating in a spacious, bright, modern setting and has seating for 118 people.
Oneworld’s new lounge is located no more than 10 minutes away from the Alliance member airlines’ departure gates. It is situated one floor up from where you come out of security on the third floor. This is where the BA and Aspire lounges were situated before, so you may be familiar with the location.
Eight oneworld member airlines – American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc and Royal Jordanian operate non-stop flights to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
Based in the non-Schengen area, the oneworld lounge will be open to all eligible oneworld customers and will be the exclusive lounge for all those departing on international flights outside of the Schengen area.
Access will be for oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members as well as those in business and first class with oneworld airlines. There is no separate first lounge.
Collectively, oneworld member airlines operate more than 200 weekly flights to Amsterdam connecting the Netherlands’ capital to more than 900 destinations worldwide through oneworld member network.
Julio Rodriguez, International Airlines Group (IAG) Chief Commercial Strategy Officer, said: “As the alliance celebrates its 25th anniversary this year; it’s great to see that customers from all member airlines will benefit from access to Oneworld’s first branded lounge experience in Europe. With oneworld carriers jointly operating more than 200 flights a week, the launch of the new lounge will further strengthen the presence of the alliance at Schiphol and benefit IAG customers flying to and through this key market in Europe.”
Neil Chernoff, British Airways Director of Networks and Alliances, said: “As a founding member of oneworld 25 years ago, British Airways is proud to support the opening of the alliance’s first fully-branded European lounge. Amsterdam is hugely popular with our customers as we operate up to There are one hundred sixteen weekly flights from London, together with our subsidiary airlines. Being part of the oneworld alliance gives our customers access to around 900 destinations around the globe, and we look forward to continuing to be a part of its continued success.”
Gerhard Girkinger, oneworld Vice President, Customer Experience, Delivery and Membership, said: “The launch of our first oneworld branded lounge in Europe – following on from our recent lounge opening at Incheon International Airport in Seoul – is a proud moment for everyone connected with the world’s leading airline alliance. It’s also fantastic for our customers who enjoy premium benefits and luxury air travel when flying with oneworld member airlines. The new lounge at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol opened as we celebrate our The 25th anniversary provides a contemporary setting that caters to the diverse needs of oneworld customers. We have created a lounge that upholds our vision to make travel bright. Customers can expect a modern setting that blends refined fixtures and fittings with digital technologies and warm, ergonomic seating areas, offering a memorable travel experience.”
David Collyer, Swissport International AG Global Vice President Executive Lounges, said: “After partnering with the oneworld alliance on their fully branded lounge at Incheon, we are delighted to be working together again on Oneworld’s first lounge in Europe, which looks fantastic. Our hospitality products are carefully developed to meet the unique and evolving needs of our airline, alliance and airport partners. Swissport and our ASPIRE team have applied the same standard of excellence to the oneworld lounge in Amsterdam.”
The new lounge is open daily between 5:30 am and 10:00 pm from tomorrow 22 February.
Lounge Features
There are some useful features in the lounge, such as a couple of individual booths perfect for a video call in privacy, a co-working table and some work booths.
There were plenty of power points around the room in most seating areas apart from a few of the dining tables. The power points I saw were EU sockets rather than multi-country but also had two USB ports at each point.
There are also modern showers and a snooze zone with comfortable chairs. There are toilets but not that many.
Food and drink
I like having the central bar called the Carousel bar which reminded me of the BA Boston lounge bar. Here, you can order their signature cocktail, which is apparently blue to match the Oneworld colour scheme. They also have a proper coffee machine so can make specialities coffees (and hopefully an espresso martini!).
They are also serving Verve Cliquot champagne as well as two red, two white and a rose wine. For non-drinkers they had a decent range including flavoured ice tea, ginger beer and the usual fizzy soft drinks.
Food was laid out all together in a buffet by the dining area. I’m not sure if they had the full spread, but there were cold meat and cheese, hot options such as quiche and build-your-own soup and some snacks and bread. Fans of the previous lounge will be pleased to know they still offer stroopwafels, but sadly, no more Bifi meat sticks! There was also a salad bar.
Design
I thought the design of the lounge was eye catching and felt more premium than the Seoul lounge which I find a bit bright for me. The lounge is based on the oneworld branding of “Fly bright” with its blue tones but also features local touches such as the arches and lights which are inspired by the canal bridges in Amsterdam which form a perfect circle with their reflection in the water and with their lights at night.
There are also local bird silhouettes featured above the central bar, including one jauntily blowing bubble gum! The team wanted to inject some oneworld fun and lightness into the lounge and also included a moss wall.
I also liked the eye-catching signature ‘mood light’, which changes its colour depending on the time of day.
One of the most prominent features of the lounge is the huge floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the entire lounge. Aviation geeks will be in seventh heaven, sipping a drink and watching the action.
Aspire Lounge
The Aspire lounge has the same main entrance and will also open tomorrow, 22 February. It will be accepting Priority Pass.
I thought the Aspire Lounge was almost as good as the Oneworld Lounge, and it shared much of the same food and drink but, of course, without the free champagne. It is slightly larger, seating 180 people.
As you enter, there are a number of tables ideal for working, all with sockets.
Then you come into the bar area, which had Heineken and Heineken 0% on tap and a range of spirits. I’d hope they have a few more by the time they open.
The wine appeared to be the same as the Oneworld lounge.
The food buffet is also here but there was not much out when I visited. There is a hot food station as well as salads and cold meat plus snacks.
Next to here was a large communal table for eating or working.
As you can see from the photo, it is a large lounge with the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the Oneworld lounge. There were lots of comfy seats, all with their own power sockets. Other than the communal table and right down the end, there weren’t many areas geared to eating.
I rather liked this little nook which was quite private and ideal for some peace and quiet.
At the end, there was another section with some tables and individual armchairs.
There were also small open booths ideal for working or more privacy for a call.
Overall, I thought the new Aspire Lounge was very impressive for a paid entry lounge.
5 comments
And thankfully no more diversions around the houses and across the roof… I shall look forward to using this idc.
Any wireless charging tables or work stations in either?
I did not spot any
It was thought that the spaces used by the old BA & Aspire lounge would be combined to make a larger Oneworld lounge.
The BA lounge was often pretty busy as BA has multiple flights throughout the day to three airport (LCY, LHR & LGW). Add in a few longhaul carriers departing at a similar time and there’s likely to be times that it’ll be somewhat crowded – if memory serves right, many of the lounghaul carriers previously ‘invited’ eligible guests to use the Aspire Lounge.
Experienced the lounge last night for the first time and was disappointed. Whilst it is a beautiful space and was very quiet for the time I was in there (19:30 – 21:00) the availability of hot food was lacking. There was no pasta left by 20:00 and they weren’t making any more – how long would that take. There was a lukewarm potato/leek or mushroom soup (I couldn’t tell, and there were no little food signs to help). I asked two people if more pasta was coming out and they said No. At 20:35, a lady came around saying they were about to close the buffet if I wanted anything more. The staff at the bar were also not trained in how to pull a beer.
Lovely laid out lounge space spoiled by the lack of food at a time when business class passengers on a Sunday evening are likely to be needing it.
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