Delta puts time limits on its lounges: ‘We’re not a WeWork’

Delta airport lounges puts passengers on the clock.

 

Delta Air Lines has implemented a new policy in which guests are only allowed access into its airport lounges within three hours of departure time.

 

The policy requires Delta Sky Club members to wait until there is less than three hours from their flight before accessing the club. Exceptions to the policy include passengers with layover connections or those with delayed flights, as long as members enter within three hours of their originally scheduled departure flight.

 

The new rule came into effect on June 1 and is expected to be rolled out to all Sky Clubs.

 

The Wall Street Journal reports that when one of its writers went to a Delta lounge at Los Angeles International Airport three hours and two minutes prior to their flight, they were told to come back in two minutes.

 

“When I nestled my phone under the kiosk scanner at the entrance to Delta’s new Sky Club lounge in Terminal 3, the screen flashed caution-tape yellow and directed me to an ambassador,” Dawn Gilbertson said.

 

“‘What time is your flight?’ she asked. It was 9:23 a.m. My flight was at 12:25 p.m. ‘Try again in two minutes’, she said.”

 

According to the Delta Sky Club website, the policy change is part of the company’s priority “to balance the popularity of the Delta Sky Club experience with the premium atmosphere and service we wish to provide for our guests”.

 

“We’re not a WeWork,” says Claude Roussel, managing director of Delta Sky Club.

 

“In the scale of what we have, you’re not going to notice 200 guests less in a specific lounge,” he says. “But you might notice that when at 4 p.m. on a Thursday your club was at 90% capacity it is now at 80%”

 

Roussel calls three hours a “very generous amount of time” to spend in the club.