Many of us enjoy heading to an airline lounge before a flight leaves. It’s also generally known that some airline lounges are much better than others – even within the same airport terminal. Some of us may even receive a thrill out of trying out a lounge operated by a different airline in the same airline alliance, which may be located in a different part, or even different terminal, of the airport.
But when you’re leaving from a specific terminal or in a specific region of the airport, how do you use an airline lounge that’s located in a different terminal or region? This post aims to unpack that, and I’ll note a few rules of thumb when you’re planning your next airport visit.
If you’re not an airport lounge user, the same principle usually applies if you’re meeting a friend within an airport, or want to visit a specific shop.
Permissible ways of moving from region to region within an airport
Generally, the area of an airport post-security check is considered the “sterile”, or airside area. Within the airside area, you’re usually free to move within that area, even if it goes to a separate terminal with a landside-airside interface. For example, at Singapore Changi Airport, there’s a dedicated shuttle train that moves between T1, T2, and T3, and airside transfers to and from T4 – you’re welcome to take these no matter what your boarding pass says, as long as you stay within the airside departures area.
Changi Airport has dedicated departures-side transfers
You can’t, however, leave the sterile area after you’ve headed in. This includes moving from a departures to arrivals area. For example, Heathrow has transfer buses between terminals that are airside, though only arriving passengers can use them – there isn’t a way to move from terminal to terminal if you’re in the departures area.
You also won’t generally be allowed to enter an area if there’s no airside way to head from that region to your gate. For example, at Heathrow Airport, you can’t enter Terminal 4 with a Cathay Pacific boarding pass (say you wanted to use the Qatar Airways lounge), since you wouldn’t be able to head over to Terminal 3 within the departures region.
The exact setup varies from airline to airline, though I’ll cover some general patterns of what this looks like below.
In the signage above located in the Heathrow T2 departures area, there is a way to head to the B-gates at Heathrow Terminal 2, but no way to head to a gate in Terminal 3
In summary, you typically will be allowed to head into any area where there’s a direct way within airside departures to head to your gate. However, if in a certain area you need to head landside or into arrivals in order to reach the gate, that area won’t be accessible to you.
You can generally use lounges within a terminal in a different concourse
Let’s start with a simple rule. You can generally move within concourses (i.e. different areas/buildings where the departure gate is situated, but the same entrance/same terminal) in order to access lounges. This includes if the concourse has a separate security check area (though obviously you’ll be subject to that security check even if you did it already).
For example, at Heathrow’s Terminal 2, there are two concourses – the A concourse, which handles shorthaul flights, and the B concourse, which handles longhaul flights. You can move freely between concourses, as long as you’re happy with a very long walk. This is very handy, as the lounges at the B concourse are all much higher-quality than the lounges at the A concourse.
You can use the Air Canada lounge as long as your Star Alliance flight leaves from Terminal 2, regardless of whether it’s the A gates or B gates
Similarly, at Shanghai Pudong Airport’s Terminal 2, you can visit a lounge in the satellite concourse even if your flight is leaving from the main concourse. In November 2025, I visited the No. 170 lounge at Pudong’s Terminal 2 satellite concourse, as that Priority Pass lounge had a shower, whereas the one in the main concourse (where my Finnair flight was departing) didn’t.
(There are exceptions. For example, at Stansted Airport, there’s no way to head back to the departures zone if you’ve moved to a satellite concourse. That’s unique and annoying, and is worth noting if you’re planning to meet a friend or go for whatever other reason – however, there are no lounges at any of the satellites apart from the Emirates lounge, which non-Emirates passengers wouldn’t be able to access anyway.)
You usually CAN use non-Schengen lounges when flying intra-Schengen, and vice versa (but not always)
Let’s think about the Schengen region specifically. Within the Schengen region, airlines operate as domestic flights, as immigration control between Schengen countries is not required. The Schengen region is a unique example as it’s got the biggest mix of airlines that operate domestically and internationally within the same terminal (the United States is slightly different, as it doesn’t have departure immigration).
Generally, you can use a non-Schengen lounge when you’re flying within the Schengen region, and vice versa – provided that you stay within the same terminal. If you’re using a non-Schengen lounge when flying within the Schengen region, you’ll just have to clear immigration twice. You do need to communicate to the immigration officer that you’re just going to visit a lounge, and while the immigration officer has discretion, generally they will let you do it.
Many airports have such a setup in Europe – Zurich, Amsterdam, and Helsinki Airport come to mind. At all three airports, you can move freely between the Schengen and the non-Schengen region. So communicate clearly with the immigration officer that you’re going to visit a lounge, and they will let you head over to the region that you’re not flying out of.
People move in and out of the Schengen region all the time (at some airports you might even have to do so in order to connect between flights), so as long as you’re able to exit the Schengen region, no one will bat an eye when you re-enter.
The Finnair non-Schengen lounge is quite a bit better than the Schengen lounge, so it’s nice to be able to head there
However, immigration officers do have final discretion, and may disallow you from moving to the other side of the sterile region just to use a lounge. You don’t have the final say in that case, and there’s not much more you can do. There’s also another case in which you can’t use lounges in a non-Schengen region (or vice versa), if…
You generally can’t use lounges in another terminal (but there are specific examples where you can)
This one’s fairly simple – you can only use lounges within the terminal that you’re departing out of.
Terminals are individual facilities that house passenger operations. When you clear security, you’ll be allowed into the airside region of your airport terminal. You don’t generally get access to another airport terminal – it’s as if the other terminal was another airport.
For example, take Tokyo Haneda Airport. Although there are bus links, Terminal 1, 2, and 3 are physically separate buildings. You can’t move from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, so you can’t use the AmEx Centurion Lounge (or the ANA Terminal 3 lounge) when flying ANA longhaul from Terminal 2, for example.
Tokyo Haneda Terminal 3
There are notable exceptions to this. For example, Singapore Changi Airport allows lounge hopping across different terminals, which can be great especially if you’re flying a Oneworld airline (with Qatar Airways, Qantas, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific all having a strong lounge presence there). The airport has an explicit arrangement to make this work, where they have airside links between all terminals – they mainly did this because Singapore Airlines used to operate regional/overflow flights out of Terminal 1 and 2 (despite being based in Terminal 3), and when Terminal 4 opened it received airside links as well.
This is also handy when flying out of Singapore Airlines’ Terminal 2, as their Terminal 3 lounge is significantly better than their Terminal 2 lounge (though the latter is getting a refresh).
You can use Singapore Changi’s T3 lounge when flying out of T2, though that’s the exception rather than the norm
Also, there are airports that name their terminals a little differently, with free movement between terminals as if they were the same building. For example, Chicago O’Hare Airport simply names Terminal 2 United’s bit of the terminal, and it’s very easy to walk there from Terminal 3, where American flies in and out of.
It’s easy to accidentally wander from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2 at Chicago O’Hare, so naturally you can visit the lounges there
Similarly, Frankfurt Airport has gates D and E in “Terminal 2”, but realistically it’s just one terminal with a different entrance – it’s easy to walk from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 without even realising it. In that case, you can use lounges across both terminals.
The Primeclass lounge at Frankfurt Airport is technically located in T2, but I can easily walk here from T1
So basically, you can’t usually visit lounges in a different terminal, unless it’s possible to walk to that terminal from the terminal your flight is departing out of without clearing any barriers.
You generally can’t use domestic lounges when flying internationally, and vice versa
Here’s another nuance. We’ve spoken about the fact that you can very easily clear Schengen immigration in order to visit a lounge. Well, because of the complexity of the Schengen region, they’re relatively way more lax about moving in and out of borders compared to other countries. You generally won’t get the same freedom moving between domestic and international zones within airports. At most airports this won’t even be a consideration, since domestic and international flights won’t even leave out of the same terminal.
For example, ANA’s Terminal 2 handles both domestic and international flights. You won’t be able to visit an international lounge when flying a domestic flight. Similarly, China Eastern operates both domestic and international flights from Shanghai Pudong’s Terminal 1, and you won’t be able to visit the international lounge when flying domestically out.
You can’t visit China Eastern’s domestic Lounge 35 when flying internationally out of Pudong Airport, and that’s true of in most countries
Conclusion
Generally, you can move between concourses to visit different lounges, but you can’t move between terminals (except in specific cases). You also can’t move from a domestic section to an international section, though the Schengen region is a major exception, where you can in most but not all cases.
There are case-by-case variations, though this is my general rule of thumb.
Is this consistent with your experience? Have you been granted or denied access to a lounge not within the above constraints?
