Delta One Lounge Boston Opening Soon: Overcrowding Potential?
Intro
There has been some exciting news on the Delta Airlines front as the airline has just announced it will be opening its third Delta One Lounge, potentially this month. With the New York lounge opening back in June and the Los Angeles one opening in October, Delta has really taken a fast approach to opening these premium lounges.
The Details
Delta Airlines has long had rumors out that the new lounge in Boston will be opening on December 9th. While nothing is confirmed yet, it seems like this timeline will stick. Additionally, not much is known as to what the new lounge will look like. Unlike the press field day in both New York and Los Angeles, we haven't seen one yet for the Boston Lounge.
What we know is that this lounge will be the smallest in the network at 6,300 square feet. For comparison's sake, the DL One Lounge at LAX is around 10,000 feet with seating for 190 guests, while the New York Lounge is massive at a whopping 40,000 square feet with seating for 500 guests.
Presumably, the amenities and offerings will be similar to what we have seen at the other lounges, including luxury showers, sit-down dining, and stellar service.
Access
In terms of access, anyone flying on a same-day Delta One ticket (departing or arriving) is eligible to access this lounge (yes, this includes BOS-LAX).
If you are flying on select partners such as Virgin Atlantic, Latam, and Air France in Business Class, you will also be eligible for access.
Lastly, if you are a Delta 360 member flying on a first-class ticket, you will have access.
My Thoughts
I am really impressed with how quickly Delta has been rolling out these new flagship lounges. For example, United opened up a singular Polaris lounge within the first 12 months (ORD) of announcing the lounge, and American Airlines opened up four within the first 12 months. However, 6 months after the first lounge opened in New York, we will now potentially see 4 open by December (JFK, LAX, SEA, BOS). Mightily impressive.
However, I can one issue with this lounge: the capacity. A few months ago, when I visited the Delta One lounge in NY, I was informed by agents that there was already an overcrowding issue in the lounge of that size. With the schedule that Delta operates out of Boston during the summer, a 6,300-square-foot lounge is not going to work from the way I see it. Between 5 pm and 9 pm during the summer, Delta alone sells over 300 seats operating in Business Class, and this doesn't even account for passengers on Air France or KLM. I'm not quite sure how they are going to make this work...
Final Thoughts
Delta Airlines had just announced that their Delta One Lounge should be opening up tomorrow (my birthday ha). While this isn't confirmed as of yet, all of the signs point towards the 6,300 square-foot lounge being opened up shortly. The lounge is set to be impressively small and only time will tell if there will be overcrowding issues.
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