2/11/2023 0 Comments Centurion lounge atlIf they want to grow their brand further, they need to offer a network of lounges that feels more like the US in Europe and Asia. One thing I don't understand is why for example their ARN lounge has a different feel, maybe it's run on a different contract or something. They seemed impressed by that since they had just a few lounges back then. Plus Amex lounges kept track of where you went, so the IAH lounge could see that you used the HKG lounge very recently and would compliment briefly on that on occasions where lots of different lounges where used in a short period (say HKG and then 2 days later SFO and then another 3 days later IAH). IIRC it was also a time when UA started to get rid of their showers at the old CO clubs and still before Polaris lounges, so that didn't help UA's case with me. I let my paid United Club membership lapse as a result and appreciated the break from the tomato soup and cheap salad that was commonplace fare at the UA clubs back then and embraced the wine tasting area and far better food. I still remember when they came into SFO because I was based there at the time. Dabble with the format for the first couple of years, expand into both premium and non-premium markets based on space available, and figure out a winning recipe. Perhaps a good lab environment for a company that had close to no experience in running lounges. I still remember that it was a major Ted destination back when Ted was still around for example. LAS for example wasn't considered a premium destination by any US 3 as far as I'm aware. I agree that it was opportunistic at that early stage. The terminal expansion/redevelopment is sufficiently close that perhaps it makes most sense for Amex to wait until some portions of the new building are open. There's no sensible central location and not a lot of empty space. Yet, it was one of the first handful of lounges. Philadelphia is a lovely city, but if you or I were building a lifestyle product from scratch it probably wouldn't be a very high priority for a location. I'd go farther: it seems to me that much of the early expansion was almost entirely opportunistic from a space availability perspective. Maybe another reason it took them a while to find the right approach with some of the airports that are recent additions. As a lifestyle product, it seems paid lounges like Amex Centurion are definitely giving the established airline lounges a run for their money given their popularity. One thing they need to do with future ones is aim for bigger lounges, as a number of their lounges are suffering from overcrowding due to being too small and had to be remodeled and expanded as a result. So their pace is definetly faster now than their historical pace. As JohanTally said, ATL is forthcoming and so are other locations. Note that they still don't have a lounge in EWR either, and that DEN, CLT, LAX, PHX and JFK were opened in 2020, very recently. Their expansion in the US has been somewhat slow and somewhat dependent on local airport agreements. Their first lounge (LAS) didn't open until 2013. If you look back just a couple of years, there were very few Amex lounges.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |