Business travel: New luxury lounge at Dulles

By Joe Brancatelli

LOUNGE LIFE

Defying the Economy, Lufthansa Focuses on the Club Life: Lufthansa Airlines, one of the world's few healthy full-line carriers, continues to roll out stunning airport lounges. This week brings a 10,000-square-foot, two-story lounge at Washington/Dulles and a 13,000-square-foot lounge for first-class and elite-level frequent fliers at its Frankfurt hub. As you probably know, Lufthansa already operates a separate First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. The new lounge is for transfer passengers who connect in Frankfurt and might not want to go to the sybaritic separate terminal. The new Frankfurt lounge, located in the West Wing of Concourse B, is no less spectacular, however. It has a private restaurant and bar and passengers have use of private rooms with leather daybeds and private offices. There's also a spa with massage rooms and showers. The huge new Washington lounge, which comes on the heels of new Lufthansa clubs at New York/Kennedy and Detroit/Metro, is located in Concourse B and adjacent to the airline's Dulles gates. It's part of the airline's $190 million global upgrade of lounge facilities. "These types of improvements and amenities are good for our business," says Oliver Wagner, Lufthansa's worldwide head of ground services. "When we opened the First Class Terminal, our traffic increased by 20 percent. The quality of ground service is more and more of a differentiator when a [premium-class] traveler chooses a carrier."

NEED TO KNOW

On-the-Road Intelligence to Help You Travel Smarter: United Airlines started accepting credit cards for onboard purchases as of March 23. … Delta Air Lines has come up with a new name for its airport clubs. By the end of the year, the combined network of Delta Crown Rooms and Northwest Airlines WorldClubs will be called the Delta Sky Club. … Ryanair, the big budget carrier in Europe, now permits in-flight use of mobile phones on about 20 aircraft. It hopes to extend the service to its entire fleet of 170 planes by the end of next year. Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines has launched a limited test of in-flight Internet. Like Southwest Airlines, Alaska uses Row 44, a satellite-based system. The three other U.S. carriers testing or deploying in-flight Wi-Fi — American Airlines, Delta and Virgin America — are using an air-to-ground system from a company called Aircell. …Southwest Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration have settled on a $7.5 million fine for last year's missed inspections of Boeing 737 aircraft. … The judge in the bankruptcy of Aloha Airlines has scrapped a deal to license the Aloha name to go!, another inter-island carrier. Irregularities in the auction process scuppered the deal. A new auction is planned.

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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2009 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.

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