The Salon Air France at LIS

A typical Salon Air France, old style, this lounge is also used by its SkyTeam partners (namely KL and UX) and BA’s C class and Gold/Silver Executive Club cardmembers pax when travelling on a OneWorld airline. Located immediately after the security checkpoint up the escalators and next to the duty free store, it has the worst location of all four lounges at LIS; still, due to the small dimension of the airport, it isn’t far from any of the boarding gates.

One of the features that this lounge has in common with the three other ones is that it has no windows. The truth, however, is that one feels more the lack of windows in it than in any of the other ones. One of the ways to compensate for the lack of natural light and of a tarmac view is to pay some attention to the lighting and to the room’s décor – TAP’s Premium Lounge is a very good example of how it can be successfully achieved. This lounge, most likely due to bad lighting, furniture colours and low ceilings, has an underground almost candle-light appeal to it – which is not particularly comfortable for the pax.

The lounge has two types of seating areas: one in the middle of the room, with chairs around tables, next to the food buffet; and another one, by the walls, with small leather-like couches (which are already a bit too worn out, though). Both have enough seats to host the guests without the lounge ever feeling too crowded, and provide an acceptable amount of privacy if one so wishes.

There is a working area as well, which is more or less separated from the remaining areas, and has some large desks – which is nice if one needs to have some work done. It also features a mac with internet connection. Unfortunately, the mac is very rarely working – which seems to be typical of most Air France Salons I’ve been to – and it’s the only internet connection offered by the lounge.

The offer of international and national newspapers and magazines is generally adequate – although it was actually poor in one or two of my visits – but, once again, one cannot take any item to the aircraft, which is very annoying.

Unfortunately, the food offer is rather poor. Apart from the snacks that exist in all AirFrance Salons – such as several types of cookies, crackers, chips and Valrhona chocolates (to which I’m addicted) –, the breakfast offer was very limited. It included no more than around 10 typical Portuguese pastry items: sometimes miniature ones, other times proper sized ones; and the lounge staff didn’t bring any more when those were all eaten. I can’t say, however, if they serve anything at lunch, tea or dinner time, because I never used the lounge at those times. The beverage offer, on the other hand, is good: plenty of juices, sodas, spirits, espresso, as well as the great Fauchon teas; I failed to find the usual champagne offer, though.

The lounge also offers restrooms which have wheelchair access and are regularly service, but they could also be any shopping centre’s restrooms: no attention has been paid to its décor. And there is no shower.

Overall, this seems to be the worst of the four lounges at LIS – which isn’t great for me, because it’s one of the two that I’m usually entitled to use.

Final evaluation
Location [2]: 7
Overall ambiance [1]: 4
Seating areas [2]: 8
Resting areas [0,5]: 0
Working areas [0,5]: 6
Internet access [2]: 2
Newspapers and magazines [1,5]: 7
Food [3]: 3
Beverages [2]: 8
Restrooms [0,5]: 8
Showers [1,5]: 0
Massage and other amenities [0,5]: 0
Lounge agents [1]: 8

Weighed overall impression: 4,92

Note: I visited this lounge several times in 2009, always during the morning.

~ by Tiago on March 21, 2010.