Loyal customers are lining up to try out increasingly swanky amenities at airport lounges across the country, writes Alison Sider for The Wall Street Journal.
As airlines and financial firms fight to be on top in the airport lounge war, a weapon of choice is luxury amenities to keep customers faithful.
At Terminal 4 in New York’s JFK International Airport, patrons enjoy specialty cocktails in a speakeasy bar, cheese tastings from a cheese monger, three-course meals of steak tartare and Hamachi crudo, and spa-like showers with bathrobes and massage appointments.
American Airlines this year opened a new flagship business-class lounge at Philadelphia International Airport that offers Champagne and cheesesteaks.
“We are participating in the lounge competition—the arms race in lounges,” Steve Johnson, chief strategy officer at American, told investors at a conference earlier this month.
The end goal is to provide a network of airport lounges to entice customers to spend hundreds of dollars a year on high-fee credit cards to get them inside.
The luxury approach is working even when card fees continue to climb.
For airports, the challenge is finding room to offer all those amenities.
Read more about this airport lounge race to the top in The Wall Street Journal.
