Private airport lounges: how the other half check in
Airport queues, mayhem and boredom are distant memories at a new terminal and VIP lounge, where travel woes are replaced with caviar and a can-do attitude
PS LAX, Los Angeles
There’s not a living soul who enjoys standing in a four-hour immigration queue. Which means arriving in Los Angeles is hell for everyone, even if you’re lucky enough to fly first class. But there is another way. A way that involves being escorted from the plane door to a chauffeur-driven car that whisks you across the runway (always a thrill, no matter how jaded you are) to a private immigration building. A building in which there is a queue of one: you.
That’s just the beginning of the extraordinary service offered by a company called PS (coming soon to Atlanta, Dallas and Miami). Just as you’re giggling with glee that you’ve cleared border control in less than 90 seconds — during which time you’ve met America’s only cheerful immigration officer — you are shown into a lounge which, hilariously, is PS’s version of baggage reclaim. It includes a lovely waitress welcoming you with the words, “Would you like some champagne or caviar?”
Settling into what looks like a particularly polished Soho House (all art books, late modern furniture and shiny bronze accents), you wait for your bags to be delivered directly to your car. If you prefer, you can decline the caviar and choose from a menu offering everything from breakfast to crudités, vegan tacos, burgers, roasted salmon, salads, noodle bowls and thoughtful children’s dishes. All of which, this being LA, are also available to go. The drinks coasters are embossed with the legend “You’ve arrived”. Damn right.
And, just in case you’d like to freshen up a little in the moments it takes for your bags to arrive, there are vast shower rooms with fluffy robes, hairdryers and all the products you could dream of. There’s a garden with a dog “rest area” for the surprising number of support animals that fly through LA. It’s also great for kids, who can run around and let off steam without you being scared they’ll be lost for ever in the abyss of an international airport terminal. There’s even a giant Jenga set. Of course, with its modest handful of other people, the lounge may be for you just too public. You might yearn for the utter incubation of a private suite. Ta-da! Let the staff show you the way. Although these rooms are perhaps more handy for the departing traveller, who still has to check in two hours before an international departure. Oh, the drag!
But what a lovely place to spend some time — especially given that you can take home everything around you free of charge. That means the coffee-table books, the phone chargers, the contents of the private bathroom (stocked like a small department of a swanky chemist), the children’s games — literally everything that isn’t nailed to the floor. Do the wealthy clients of this service really leave with their carry-ons bulging with swag? Yes siree, they do.
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If you aren’t stuffing your bag, you can book a massage, haircut, manicure or pretty much any beauty treatment you can think of in the spa suites.
Private terminals like this used to be the preserve of those who flew on private jets, but brilliant companies such as PS are opening them up to the rest of us. And they take their luxury missions very earnestly indeed. The experience is as elevated as that which you’d expect from the greatest hotel, except PS has only an hour or two to impress you. I dare even the most world-weary traveller to leave anything other than slack-jawed and agog at the service.
Wealth brings ease, a general lack of pain. This service is the embodiment of lack of friction; you slip through in a pampered haze like a greased piglet. “All our clients are so cheerful and kind,” our waitress remarked, noting surprise. But I’m sure they are; it’s so exceptionally pleasant that it’s impossible to be grouchy. And — this is not an edifying statement, but true nonetheless — the proximity of the seventh circle of hell that is the LAX immigration hall somehow makes it even better.
From $1,095 per person for non-members, reserveps.com
Kate Reardon
Heathrow VIP, London
I was on the M4, en route to Heathrow to catch a flight to Johannesburg, when the text message flashed up. “We’re sorry to advise your flight has been cancelled. Further information will be available shortly. British Airways.”
Profanities filled the air and adrenaline flooded my brain. I was meant to be interviewing a South African chief executive the next day and meeting my 80-year-old mother, who doesn’t have a mobile phone, at Johannesburg airport. And I was supposed to be catching a bush plane in Botswana the day after. The next 48 hours, I groaned, were going to be hell.
Then my phone rang. “Good evening, Miss Grainger,” said the soothing voice on the line. “This is Lizzie from the Concorde Team of BA. We know your flight has been cancelled but wanted to let you know that, because you’re using our Heathrow VIP service, we will get you on to the next BA flight out tonight, two hours later. We’re sorry about the inconvenience, but please be assured you’re being taken care of.”
For the next half an hour, sitting like Lady Muck in a new BMW i7 electric car, with the charming Emad Karim chauffeuring me, I could feel my heart rate reduce and my breathing slow. “Our job, madam, is to make life easier for our clients,” Karim said. “So please, relax. You are in our hands.”
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For someone who flies everywhere in economy class (to soothe slightly my tortured conscience about my carbon footprint), being taken care of at Heathrow is a totally new experience. As a travel writer, I’ve learnt over the years how to make economy journeys as comfortable as possible: packing a Nap pillow, a velvet blackout mask and a soft pashmina so I can sleep anywhere; slathering my skin with mini Tata Harper creams and lipsalve; and buying food from Fortnum & Mason in Heathrow Terminal 5 (the £30 takeaway Hamperling of smoked chicken salad, cheese and biscuits, lemon posset and Napolitain chocolates is particularly good).
None of Karim’s clients, the chauffeur admitted, flies economy. That’s because the Black Service offered by Heathrow VIP is usually used by Hollywood stars, diplomats, royalty and musicians: passengers who want to be collected from home in a black BMW or Mercedes (followed by a separate van for luggage, if required), ushered into a discreet suite while their paperwork is taken care of and driven to the plane door without a paparazzo in sight.
Arriving at Heathrow this way was certainly less of a bunfight than my normal mode of transport: the Tube. We pulled up beside a glistening glass door, five storeys beneath the taxi rank at Terminal 5, and a doorman in morning suit and top hat bowed as he opened the door. “Good evening, Ms Grainger,” he said. “Please come in. We’ll take care of your luggage.”
From there I was shown in to one of eight Windsor Suites where, thanks to BA, I was going to be spending the next four hours. Not that I was complaining. My suite was warmly decorated like a hotel, with colourful fabrics and wooden panelling. A long sofa was littered with comfy cushions and a leather pouffe beckoned me to put my feet up and flick through art and fashion tomes or channels on a central TV while enjoying fruit from a well-stocked bowl on my dining table. Best of all, a butler kept popping in to see if I was OK, and to ply me with champagne (“Moët, Taittinger or Dom Pérignon, madam?”) and take food orders. Within half an hour I’d settled right in, sipping and munching, flicking and chatting. I ordered a delicious salad from the menu designed by Jason Atherton, to enjoy alongside a crispy poke bowl with miso-soaked salmon. I watched The Devil Wears Prada for the 500th time (with no Sky or Netflix on offer, it was the only vaguely appealing viewing on the mainstream channels). By the time, 45 minutes before take-off, an official arrived to deliver my boarding pass and passport and to escort me through an adjoining security wing — where there were no queues or shouting staff beside the scanners, only smiling, efficient personnel — I’d almost forgotten I was going to Africa at all.
Thankfully I didn’t have to do much thinking for myself. Back in Karim’s BMW, which followed a second, security-approved BMW topped with a flashing yellow light, I was whisked through the back roads and tunnels of Heathrow (some of which, rather thrillingly, go underneath the runway) and escorted by a member of BA’s apologetic Concorde Team straight to the plane’s door.
It was there that real life kicked in again. “Good evening, madam. Please turn right and keep going to the back: 77K.” There, having passed 76 rows of already-seated passengers who eyed me suspiciously, I squeezed myself into a tiny space beside a large manspreader, who promptly took over our joint armrest, picked his nose and spilt his takeaway coffee on me.
I could have glared. But replete with champagne and salmon and kindness, instead I simply closed my eyes, slept soundly on my Nap pillow and arrived in Johannesburg just in time to meet my mother — who, thankfully, had no idea how badly our reunion could have gone. And that was worth every penny.
From £3,025 plus VAT for up to three passengers, on arrival or departure, heathrowvip.com
Lisa Grainger
