Spain-giving 2014: Korean Air Lounge At LAX
***This is part 2 of my “Spain-giving 2014” trip report detailing a recent trip to Barcelona over Thanksgiving weekend***
1. American Express Centurion Lounge at SFO
2. Korean Air Lounge at LAX
3. KLM Business Class Los Angeles to Barcelona, via Amsterdam
4. Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona
5. Exploring Barcelona in a Motorcycle Sidecar
6. Day trip to Girona for Lunch at El Celler De Can Roca
7. Sala VIP Lounge at BCN, KLM Crown Lounge at AMS
8. KLM Business Class Barcelona to San Francisco, via Amsterdam
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Since my international flights have almost always departed from SFO, I really hadn’t spent much time at LAX. I wrote about my LAX-envy and in particular, how they’d been getting all the latest and greatest products from the airlines.
It would be the same case for our KLM flights, where the outbound from Los Angeles to Amsterdam would feature KLM’s latest flat-bed seats, while the return from Amsterdam to San Francisco would feature, well something much older. But we’ll get to that later.
However, getting to fly the latest product out of LAX was just a side benefit, as the decision to leave from LAX simply came down to price. The LAX-BCN-SFO ticket that we purchased was several hundred dollars cheaper than the SFO-BCN-SFO equivalent. While we had to find our own way down from SFO to LAX, the savings more than made up for that extra flight.
We arrived at the relatively empty Tom Bradley International Terminal and made our way through security in minutes. It was an uneventful stroll to the Korean Air Lounge until my wife realized that she had left her laptop back at the security checkpoint. We sprinted back and luckily found it waiting for us in the “lost and found” drawer.
We had spent countless hours on multiple occasions at the underwhelming Korean Air First Class Lounge at Seoul-Incheon, so our expectations should have been relatively low for the KAL Lounge at LAX. But somehow, this lounge still managed to disappoint in many ways.
The lounge was relatively empty when we first arrived, but filled up quickly over the next hour. There were a few seating areas, including an “outdoor” terrace with great views of the terminal. It’s good that we had our choice of seats, since we must have gone through at least 5 sections trying to find working outlets. Also, the coffee tables are an awkward upside-down cone shape, which provided very little surface area to put things down.
After getting settled, we went to grab a bite to eat, but really didn’t find much. There was a fruit and veggie spread, along with some finger sandwiches, and chips and salsa. But after watching a small child dip his finger in the salsa, I quickly wrote that entire section of food off. Eventually, I settled on some spicy instant ramen which helped to clear our the sinuses before the long flight.
Overall, this was a very average lounge, even when compared to other domestic lounges operated by international airlines. I’ll be flying Singapore Air Suites next year and look forward to trying some of the other lounge options at LAX.