The New Yorker has published a deliciously fact-stuffed long read on the airport lounge: there are more than 3,500 worldwide, of which 37 are in Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. American Airlines opened the first in 1939 and called its VIP members “admirals”.
There are almost more admirals than ordinary seamen now (a weird metaphor in an air travel context, yes; blame American Airlines). The “mostly low- and mid-tier” lounge network Priority Pass saw a 31% increase in usage last year, including me: my credit card came with this seemingly seductive perk. I was thrilled to join the global elite in what I imagined would be a cashmere and champagne cocoon, saved from the usual three hours (my husband is one of those travellers) crouched by a bin in the purgatorial wasteland of Manchester Terminal 3, nursing a half-frozen Boots falafel wrap.
In fact, vintage Veuve Clicquot, caviar carts and Porsche rides planeside (all real lounge perks in the article) are conspicuously absent. At best, you perch on a pleather chair full of other people’s crumbs in a harshly lit room with conference centre energy, nursing a tiny can of pop and a plateful of dregs from the picked-over buffet (stale mini-muffins, an antediluvian orange, four olives). At worst (often), you can’t get in because it’s full: at Stansted, I found a snaking line of pissed-off travellers queueing, while beyond the rope, a harried attendant ripped open catering packs of, I think, coleslaw to slop into a bowl as a restive crowd of buffet vultures circled.
My dream of jet-set glamour has died and it serves me right. The lounge system exploits our (and by “our” I mean “my”) unprepossessing desire to feel a bit special, when the reality is we’re all going to end up crammed into the same awful, environmentally disastrous metal tube (unless you fly private, an experience apparently so sybaritic Tina Brown calls it the “ultimate corrupting force”). The worse the airport experience, the better it prepares us for that. So I’m going back where I belong: the floor of Terminal 3. I might pack a sandwich, though.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist