Even Delta’s Fancy Biz Class Lounge at JFK is Getting Overcrowded

When Delta first opened its gargantuan Delta One Lounge in New York City (JFK) last year – the first of now four exclusive business class spaces and counting – one of the airline’s top executives proudly declared that lines to get inside would be a thing of the past. 

Not so. Look at this from last weekend.

Now, that’s just one snapshot – from a busy Saturday afternoon over a holiday weekend in the summer, no less. But for the airline that fancies itself the nation’s premium carrier – and bills this lounge as the best of the best – any line to get in the door raises major concerns. 

As the FlyerTalk forum user who encountered that line put it: “It doesn’t scream premium.”

And that squares with my experience during a visit last fall, when the lounge got noticeably, even uncomfortably busy around 4 p.m. or so ahead of the big evening bank of transatlantic departures. In fact, it’s clearly worsening: Back then, I said it’s “unlikely you’ll see a line out the door.”

I was wrong, too. So while the Delta One Lounge at JFK is marvelous in almost every way, it’s also identical to your average Sky Club in the most important respect: It’s simply too busy.

So what gives? How on earth can a 40,000-square-foot lounge reserved (almost) exclusively for business class passengers have a line out the door? 

For starters, it’s likely a victim of its own success. Busy or not, this lounge is undeniably something special.

There are complimentary spa treatments, shower suites to freshen up before (or after) a long-haul flight, and more staff circling the lounge – pouring flutes of champagne or handing out amuse bouche – than you could possibly count. Best of all, there’s a sit-down restaurant (so fancy that Delta calls it a “brasserie”) with made-to-order meals that put even some high-end restaurants in the city to shame.

Read our full review of the Delta One Lounge at JFK!

But it’s also a numbers game. Even at a mammoth 40,000 square feet, it’s not big enough. 

More than 3,000 Delta One business class seats depart from JFK each and every day this month, according to scheduling data from the aviation analytics company Cirium – and if you throw in premium cabin seats on partner carriers like Virgin Atlantic and KLM who can also access this lounge, that swells north of 4,000 a day. Clearly, that’s enough to overwhelm the lounge during peak periods.

And the peak is undeniable: Traffic picks up in the late afternoon and early evening. 

That’s a byproduct of when planes are taking off for Europe and South America. According to an analysis of Cirium data, nearly two-thirds of the daily long-haul flights operated by Delta or its partners take off between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. 

That means the lounge is likely to be fairly empty throughout the morning. But by 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., it’ll fill up fast, making it harder to find a seat or get a reservation at the restaurant until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. as passengers head off to board.

So what can Delta do? After all, these business class lounges are already incredibly restrictive.

You need a business class ticket on Delta or one of its close partner carriers. And it has to be branded Delta One: A standard first class seat to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Miami (MIA), or even Cancún (CUN) won’t cut it. Delta doesn’t sell memberships or day passes to the Delta One Lounge, nor do they offer ways for other passengers to upgrade their way into the exclusive lounge.

Delta could copy a move it made last year at its location in Boston (BOS), where the airline promptly stopped admitting passengers from virtually all of its partner airlines in order to ensure there was space in the (admittedly much smaller) lounge for customers flying Delta. But there’s another far likelier culprit leading to overcrowding…

Unlike your typical Sky Club, there’s no time limit for entry at Delta One Lounges. So while you can only head for the Sky Club three hours before departure of a flight, you can head to the Delta One Lounge four, six, even nine hours before any business class flight. Given how special these lounges are, I have no doubt many passengers are taking advantage.

Will Delta do it? Only time will tell.

Bottom Line

Much like Sky Clubs, Delta One Lounges have quickly become popular to a fault. And that presents a problem. 

A long line out the door sends the wrong signal to paying passengers, whether they forked over a few thousand dollars or 300,000-plus SkyMiles.