The United Airlines Red Carpet lounge at San Francisco airport is big, but I wouldn’t say that it’s good because of that. I guess my feeling is based on the fact that I’m used with European and Asian lounges, which is offering a lot more then North American lounges.

The lounge in Terminal 3 is a quite nice looking big lounge, and it has a bar. But it doesn’t offer any real food, the only thing you can get here is some light snacks, as well as coffee and non-alchoholic beverages. If you like to have something stronger you have to buy it, and a beer cost from 5 dollar. So it is a little bit disappointing when you are used to lounges in other parts of the world where everything is free.

United Airlines seems to have a strange policy for Star Alliance members. Normally a gold member would be allowed to bring one guest to the lounge, but United states that they have a non-guest policy. So don’t be supprised if you can’t bring a guest into their lounge even if you think you should be allowed. But it is one thing this lounge have, and it is a good view over what is happening at the airport, everything, even a single bag they drop, can be seen from the windows here.

If you still like to get to this lounge you will find it here.

The Lufthansa lounge in Terminal A, Frankfurt, is one of the best places if you’re really hungry. The Senior lounge there is always well equiped with food, but a little depending on the time of the day. At evening they have things like pasta and hotdogs, not only the light snack which is nothing if you are looking for food at days when you haven’t had a single meal. They even have staff cooking the pasta in the lounge, and not only heating food, as they do in a lof of other lounges. What you also can find here is a smoothie bar. So what ever you might think about Lufthansa, one thing is for sure, they know how to satisfy your hunger.

Looking for Lufthansa lounges? Check out this link

http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/se/info_and_services/at_the_airport/lounges?l=en&nodeid=1675585&cid=1000354

Spending too much time in line for the security check? The tightened security checks do take time, but there are ways to speed things up, even in fast-track. Here are some guidelines to get you and your co-travellers through quickly.

Liquids: You probably know this by know, but it happens all too often so I’ll repeat it: No liquids in containers bigger than 100ml (3.5 fl oz) are allowed. Also, there’s a maximum of 1l (35 fl oz) in total. The containers need to be placed in a clear transparent bag and shown to the personell. If it’s inside your carry-on luggage, you have to take it out and everyone will get delayed.  Want to play it safe and do not need any medications and such? Then just drink up and proceed.

Metal objects: prepare yourself by removing all metallic items from yourself prior to entering security check. This includes wristwatch, belt, mobile phone, change etc. If you carry a jacket, put the stuff in your pockets or put it in a small plastic bag for your convenience. Just throwing all the stuff in a tray means it takes time to retreive later on.

Shoes: Most often, security personell instists on removing your shoes, especially if you wear boots or bigger shoes. The fastest way to get through is to just remove them prior to entering the metal detector.

Laptop: Well ahead of putting your stuff in the X-Ray, remove your laptop and put it in a separate tray.

Other: Remove your Jacket/hood/cap and anything that could possible conceal a weapon or similar. Use your imaginiation.

After X-Ray: Remove your items as soon as your allowed to. Clear the area and repackwhen your not obstructing your fellow passengers behind. Too many times people start dressing at the end of the X-Ray belt and is causing delays. Often there is a area nearby where you can put on your shoes and pack your bags. Use it.

Finally, arguing with the security personell does not get you or anyone else through quicker. Just do as your told and everyone will be on their way to the lounge in no time.

Some time ago, I had an unfortunate business trip to wonderful Madrid, that I feel an urge to share. My plan was to take a direct train from Linköping to Copenhagen airport, Kastrup, and then a  Spanair flight to Madrid. I could spend some time working on the train, have lunch and  arrive and check in at Kastrup. Nice and convenient… I thought. Before I got on the train, there was four announced delays, first 2 minutes, then 2 more,  then 5 minutes etc etc. Eventually my X2 shows up and I got on. On board, the internet conection was intermittent and I could not complete my mail syncronization, it kept on timing out. Complaints was disregarded and my PC was blamed. In the middle of my lunch, getting close to Malmö. Another announcement was made that I had to switch train at Malmö. I had to send the rest of my lunch in the bin, quickly shut down my computer and collect my things. Since there had been additional dealays along the trip, I was now short on time and had to rush to catch the commuter to Kastrup. Shame on you, SJ! I do prefer by going by train, but with this treatment of customer I see no benifit.

Getting on to the Spanair flight, I soon find out that I was double booked. Ending up in a middle seat in Economy, i.e. nothing to eat and no drinks except lukewarm coffee I tried to get some sleep. The thing with Spanair is that their seats seems to be designed to fit midgets. There is no way to get a sleep without breaking the neck. Ouch!

Finally, arrived at Barajas. I followed the signs to baggage claim and waited… and waited..and waited. No bags for me. I turned to the missing baggage counter and was told that there had been a problem with the electric signs, but there was a guy at the gate, telling people where to go, she added. Unfortunately, it turned out that guy spoke only Spanish. So here I was, at the wrong terminal, I had to exit the security zone and get back into the other terminal. Aarrgh.

Eventually, I got my bag and after asking around for an ATM and Taxi stand, I escaped the airport.  BTW, I had an very nice stay in Madrid with yummy Tapas.

I haven’t been on the Diners lounge in Copenhagen airport for quite a while, mostly because of the gold card I have in Star Alliance, which have given me what I need when traveling. But this journey I was in hurry and the closes lounge was the Diners lounge in Copenhagen. So I thought I pop by to see if the still where offering both beer, wine and hard liquor.

And actually the still did. But the whole lounge had got a little bit of a face-lift. The old chairs and quite boring look had been refurbished into something much more freshly. Of course the premises were still the same, which means a quite long and narrow room. But they could still offer what everyone need if being a little bit thirsty. So if you have access to the Diners lounge and what something to drink in the transit hall, between pier A and pier B, then this is okay place.

I only had time for a single beer this time, but I could have stayed there for a couple of more drinks.

Diners Lounge Cph

Diners Lounge CPh

I woke up this morning, slightly late, looking forward to a short business trip to Madrid, at least short from a distance perspective. My route was based on a train journey from Linköping to Stockholm, then to catch a flight to Copenhagen and transfer in Copenhagen to a flight to Madrid, pretty simple. Well, it didn’t start out that good.

My first mistake was trying to change my train ticket in the last minute. I noticed that our travel agency didn’t book the kind of ticket they was suppose to do. So I called them up about 15 minutes before the train was about to leave, and asked them to change the ticket. The finally did, and I picked up a new ticket in the machine at the train station.

The train to Stockholm was 30 minutes late before even leaving Linköping, and this was just the beginning. When the train finally arrived, 30 minutes late I was freezing after having waited outside in 2 degrees Celsius. I got on the train and was looking forward for a nice ride up to Stockholm, spent with a book. Unfortunetly it turned out to be someone already occupying my seat. I thought he was on the wrong seat, but it turned out that the travel agency re-booked my ticket to the wrong date; my new train ticket was for tomorrow.  Well, not much to do, just to try to find an emtpy seat, which wasn’t possible. I spoke to the personnel on the train, explained the situation, and it turned out to be a fully booked train, so guess what, I had to spend my time in the train restaurant. Not what I was planning. 

Before even getting to the next train station, in Norrköping, we had increased the delay with about 20 minutes. Well this kept happening during the whole journey, up to the situation where the train was 1 hour and 20 minutes late. I was quite bored of drinking coffee and trying to read in a crowded train resturant by the time the train got to Stockholm central station.

Well, I managed to catch a train just 15 minutes later to Arlanda. Checked in and exchanged some money in a hurry, just to be able to get some breakfast at the SAS lounge. The had some really good salmon, which did make the day slightly better. Got me some drinks as well, and then about an hour later I cught the flight to Copenhagen. This went without any bigger problems. FInally I Copenhagen I didn’t have much of time to do something, but I hate to wait, so instead I run by the Diners lounge, which was the closest one. Got me a beer and the straight back, had about 30 minutes in between the flights.

Got on the flight to Madrid, which was with Spainair, not my favourite. The flight was really boring, and it takes almost three hours. The weather in Madrid was poor, so on the way in to Madrid airport we caught some turbulence, which was really bad. The plane was going back and forth, up and down. The pilot was on the way to touch down with the plane when we it caught a really bad side wind, and just with like 20 meters before touching down he had to interrupt the landing and put the enginees on max just to avoid hitting the ground with one of the wings. The plane went very steep back up again in the sky, and we had to make another try, which took about 30 minutes. This time it went better, eventhough it didn’t feel like the pilot had much of margins this time either. This was one of the few times I have heard the crowd cheer and applaud a landing.

Well, after all I got there eventhough it was not a short trip and not an easy one either.

If you have access to SAS Lounges and are traveling through Chicago O’Hare airport, Terminal 5, I would really recommend a stop at the SAS Business lounge. It’s definitely not one of the biggest lounges, but compared to the typical American lounges the serve both beer, wine and liquor, free of charge. The snacks aren’t bad either.

The best of all is if you are leaving Terminal 5 with a SAS flight, to for example Copenhagen, then you can wait in the lounge just until the last minute, as SAS uses the gate next to the lounge. You will be able to see when the start boarding the aircraft. Just grab a last beer and walk around the corner on to the aircraft, perfect. Wish there where more places like this, just relax and walk on to the aircraft.

You will find the lounge in Terminal 5 just by the gate M7. The rest of this Terminal is not really worth anything.

SAS Lounge at Terminal 5, Chicago O'Hare

I’m being a Swede quite often travel with SAS. I remember trying to find a list of SAS lounges at the time, which at that time wasn’t easy. Today SAS have a list on their web page, and for those interested, who might have looked for it as I did, it can be found here:

http://www.sas.se/sv/allt-om-resan/SAS-lounger/Lounge/?vst=true

Welcome everyone,

Finally this page has been launched, after years of talking about setting up a web page to share stories about airports, airport lounges and airlines. Well, here it is.

We hope to be able to provide some interesting stories, as well as some facts about airports and lounges that could be of use for you who travel.