Star Alliance has opened its first North America lounge at Los Angeles Tom Bradley International Airport. Located on the 5th floor, adjacent to the south-side security checkpoint, the 15,000sq ft (1,400sq m) Star Alliance lounge has a seating capacity of 264 for first and business class passengers, including VIP rooms. This new facility replaces 12 former airline lounges used by individual airlines.
The lounge, Star Alliance”s largest, and the biggest at the international terminal, was designed to serve the premium passengers of its member airlines flying out of Los Angeles.
Passengers can choose to unwind in the lounge areas with food and drinks, take a shower or use the business centres in both the first and business class sections, which are equipped with free wireless internet connections, telephones and fax/copy/scan/print machines. Unlike the majority of lounges in North America the new Star operation comes as a courtesy service for long haul passengers. In most lounges clients pay for drinks and snacks.
”This lounge is another example of our ”Move under one Roof” concept where we bring our member airlines together in a deluxe common facility so that our passengers can enjoy the benefits of the combined resources of Star Alliance carriers,” said Star Alliance CEO, Jan Albrecht.
The Los Angeles facility is the third Star Alliance-branded lounge around the world; the other two are in Zurich (Switzerland) and Nagoya (Japan) respectively. Star Alliance is currently developing two other lounges at Heathrow Airport Terminal 1 and at Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1, both slated to open in 2008.
The lounge is open to Star Alliance gold members as well as first and business class passengers holding a ticket on any of the six resident alliance airlines operating from the international terminal: ANA, Asiana, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, SWISS and THAI. These six airlines offer 74 weekly international flights out of Los Angeles. Air New Zealand continues with its own facility at the airport.