REVIEW – Skyteam Lounge : London Heathrow T4

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Intro

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What do Czech Airlines, Air Europa, Tarom and Xiamen Air have in common?….

Let’s face it, once OneWorld and Star Alliance have turned an airline down, Skyteam is where they end up.

It was therefore with understandable trepidation that I approached the Skyteam Lounge in London Heathrow’s Terminal 4, itself the least glamorous and hardest to reach of the airport’s departure halls.

Into the unknown…

It took the lady at reception a little while to figure out whether or not we were entitled to lounge access. Our flight from London to Paris was in economy but the long haul flight from Paris to Guangzhou was in Business. With Oneworld this would have been clear cut but here the struggle went on for a good five minutes until I suggested that we just use my Priority Pass card to get in.

Once inside I left my bags at the luggage storage area by the reception desk and made my way into the main lounge area on the ground floor. The lounge is spread across two floors with a lot of the facilities on Level 2 mirroring those on Level 1 below.

 

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The Lounge

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One great benefit of this lounge is that it has windows running down the entire length of the facility, ensuring that there is plenty of natural light. The layout of the seating is quite strange though, with lots of disparate areas scattered close to each other with a distinct lack of privacy and power sockets.

A futuristic looking buffet, surrounded by cafeteria style seating, serves as the centrepiece to each floor.

To say that the offering during our visit was lacklustre would be something of an understatement. The bad news: the food is terrible. The good news: at least there isn’t much of it…

The most impressive aspect of the lounge is unquestionably the bar area at the far end of the ground floor. To be fair to the designers there is modern recessed lighting throughout the lounge and this bar area is quite striking. The beverage selection isn’t exactly top shelf but the variety is excellent. It isn’t that often that you see Campari or Grand Marnier in a lounge and rarer still to see 8 reds and 8 whites in the wine selection! 

The soft drinks selection was decent but the Bloody Mary garnishes were a real afterthought. A few solitary reeds of dried celery and an empty bottle of Worcester sauce. Not exactly giving the AA Flagship lounge in Chicago with its extravagant selection of garnishes a run for its money.

I managed to cobble together an aggressively niche dinner, which I quickly consumed before continuing on my exploration of the facilities.

At the far end of the lounge was a spa. If you know me by now you’ll know that I don’t have the best of luck with these places. Once again the area appeared to be shut for the day with no staff visible anywhere.

I decided to head upstairs to see if things were any better up there. SPOILER ALERT: they weren’t.

Upstairs featured a replica of the buffet but lacked the bar area. The seating was similarly chaotic and cluttered and lacking in power ports.

The main point of distinction between the two floors is that the upstairs has a series of cubicles featuring video games and ageing PCs.

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Conclusion

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The kind of lounge that makes you want to arrive at the airport with barely a minute to spare. If you’re 12, you’ll love the Playstations and unlimited Fanta but otherwise the fact that there is zero privacy, a lack of decent food and very few places to charge a device make this a lounge best avoided.

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