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THE ALVIATOR'S VERDICT
A beautiful arrivals lounge in Frankfurt with readily available showers is a redeeming feature of Lufthansa's otherwise subpar business class product, though there's no X-factor that makes this lounge a must-visit. |
4.5
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After my longhaul flight from Hong Kong to Frankfurt onboard Lufthansa’s A340 business class, I had access to the Lufthansa Welcome Lounge at Frankfurt Airport, which is the airline’s arrivals lounge. Typically, arrivals lounges allow travelers to wait comfortably for their hotel check-in time, or for business travelers to freshen up before a meeting. In this case, Lufthansa’s Welcome Lounge allowed me to grab a shower and some food before exploring Frankfurt for a few hours.
This post will detail my stay inside the Lufthansa Welcome Lounge at Frankfurt Airport, including the seating and atmosphere, food and beverages, showers, and other facilities. For points of comparison, I’ve also visited the Virgin Atlantic Revivals Lounge at London Heathrow, the Swiss Arrivals Lounge at Zurich Airport, and the now-closed Cathay Pacific “The Arrival” lounge in Hong Kong.
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Access and Opening Hours
Lufthansa’s Welcome Lounge at Frankfurt Airport is open from 5:15 AM to 12:30 AM daily, and access is open to the following passengers:
- HON Circle members arriving on any Lufthansa, Swiss or Austrian flight
- Lufthansa first and business class members arriving on any intercontinental flight (with flight numbers between 401 and 799) – practically this means any first class flight, as Lufthansa doesn’t operate first class intra-Europe
- United Airlines Global Services Card members arriving on a United Airlines flight
- Air China first class passengers
Note that you won’t be able to use this lounge after arriving from an intra-Europe/shorthaul flight, or if you’re departing Frankfurt and not connecting. (Strangely, those arriving from Egypt can use the lounge based on the access requirements, whereas those arriving from Morocco, Algeria or Tunis can’t, albeit technically being intercontinental.)
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Location
The Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge is located in Frankfurt Airport Terminal 1’s arrivals hall, immediately outside of Baggage Claim Area B. On this particular morning in Frankfurt there was no queue to enter Germany, and I emerged from Baggage Claim Area A a mere seven minutes after disembarking the aircraft. This is efficiency that Heathrow Airport can only dream of.
There’s not much of an indication that the Welcome Lounge is located outside of the baggage reclamation area (the signage didn’t mention the Welcome Lounge), though make your way out of the secure area into the arrivals hall.
Frankfurt Airport Arrivals Hall Baggage Reclamation Area
Signage to the Welcome Lounge immediately became clearer once I entered the arrivals hall, though it was about a 5-minute walk to get to where the lounge was located, immediately outside Baggage Claim Area B.
Frankfurt Airport Arrivals Hall Signage to Lufthansa Welcome Lounge
Once getting to the correct area of the arrivals hall, I was greeted with the familiar entrance that many Lufthansa lounges seem to have.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Entrance
A agent scanned my mobile boarding pass and welcomed me into the lounge.
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Seating
The Arrivals Lounge is one large rectangular room, featuring a mix of table seating, restaurant-style seating with benches, bar seating, and couch seating. There were a couple of other people in the lounge, however I wasn’t alone, so I didn’t take tons of photos.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Seating
The lounge was very quiet, and a pleasant place to sit. I’m fairly forgiving of a lack of seating options in an arrivals lounge, since people aren’t usually spending long layovers here. I also appreciated that there wasn’t a TV in the lounge, which would’ve contributed to noise levels. There were seating options for working, sitting and relaxing, and eating, and I felt like that was more than enough for an arrivals lounge.
One major gripe is the lack of power ports – not even universal power ports, but just power ports of any sort. There’s bar seating by one corner with some universal power ports, though by the sofas I scavenged for a place to charge my phone, to no avail. This is a pretty major detail to miss on Lufthansa’s behalf, though not a big deal, considering the lounge was empty and I could’ve easily moved to a seat with charging options.
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Food and Beverages
The Lufthansa Welcome Lounge was serving breakfast during my stay, and the options were limited, but looked fresh.
The hot options consisted of roasted cherry tomatoes, bacon, quiche, scrambled eggs, and shakshuka, all of which looked above average for an airline lounge. I helped myself to some quiche, which was tasty. Meanwhile the cold options
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Hot Food Options
Meanwhile the cold options consisted of various baked goods with jams, cold cuts, fruit, and some yoghurt cups. I helped myself to one of the latter, and it was quite good as well.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Cold Food Options
It’s a bit of a missed opportunity for Lufthansa to not offer barista coffee in this lounge, though I suppose they have staffing issues, and the lounge itself doesn’t get much traffic. Drinks wise, there was a coffee machine, a selection of teas and soft drinks, and some smoothies, as well as some cakes and cookies to accompany.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Drinks
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt WiFi
I neglected to perform a speed test at this lounge, though WiFi at this lounge was easy to connect to, free, and fast. For what it’s worth, the WiFi at this lounge is powered by Telekom, which operates a lot of the WiFi hotspots in central Frankfurt as well.
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Shower
One of the main features of a good arrivals lounge is a comfortable place to shower, so I made a beeline to the shower rooms to freshen up after my flight. There was a short wait as a shower attendant scurried to find someone who could open up a shower room for me, though eventually I was assigned a shower room. There are 26 shower rooms at this lounge, and I wouldn’t expect a wait to use one.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Shower Reception Area
The shower room was well appointed and the water pressure was great, and I also appreciated the L’Occitane toiletries. I did find the ventilation in the shower room to be lacking, and the hairdryer was weak and didn’t feature a nozzle. Still, I was left grateful to have the luxury of showering straight after a flight, as opposed to bothered by the observations listed above.
Lufthansa Welcome (Arrivals) Lounge Frankfurt Shower Room
Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt Service
The shower attendant I interacted with at the lounge was friendly, as was the staff member that scanned my boarding pass. There was also a separate concierge table at the lounge, presumably for those that wanted to book rides into the city (or perhaps to sort out connecting flights, or find missing bags?).
Lufthansa is in the middle of a staffing crisis at the moment, and despite my plates being cleared upon finishing, I didn’t feel like the staff members working the lounge wanted to be there. I really can’t blame them, given that they’re showing up to staff a lounge before dawn only to host less than 10 passengers per hour. I’d see this as a management issue more than anything, and wonder whether it’d make sense to make this lounge entirely self-serve, allocating human resources elsewhere.
Conclusion: Lufthansa Arrivals Lounge Frankfurt
The fact that Lufthansa has an arrivals lounge at Frankfurt Airport to start with is something I appreciate. I think that the lounge has all the basics, including fast WiFi, a good selection of places to sit with a quiet atmosphere, limited but high-quality food and drinks including coffee, and readily available shower rooms. Lufthansa doesn’t differentiate their arrivals lounge experience in the same way some airlines do, including a-la-carte dining and barista coffee, though I didn’t feel like it was necessary during my visit.
Perhaps I may be playing armchair CEO here, though Lufthansa could open up this arrivals lounge to all business class arrivals, which would add value to their otherwise unimpressive intra-Europe travel experience? Anyway, given the competitive landscape of airline arrivals lounges, this is definitely Lufthansa’s most competitive lounge at Frankfurt Airport.
Read more from this trip:
What’s your favourite airline arrivals lounge?
Nice review. I was there in November and share your assessment. Nice, bit of a hike in wrong direction for me – I’m glad I did. OTOH I stopped at the First Class lounge in the concourse, showered, enjoyed a bit of the ambience, then to the Arrival Lounge to check it out and back to the Hilton
Safe Landings
Good review. You hit the nail on the head with your observations. I agree. The showers are plentiful though and as you stated that is a good thing. Just wondering. Is an arrivals lounge any different than a regular lounge?