Luxury Takes Flight at Airport Lounges

Few places feel as engineered to remind you of your social standing as the airport.

- Priya Krishna

Each of its protocols, from check-in to security to boarding, imposes a hierarchy. Are you Executive Platinum? Premier?

The peak of that pecking order has long been the airport lounge, which allows elite passengers a cushioned escape from the tumult of the terminal.

Now, even as airline stocks have tumbled and ticket demand slows, American airlines and credit card companies are reaching for a higher level of luxury and exclusivity—particularly when it comes to food.

At the one-year-old Delta One Lounge at John F. Kennedy International Airport, it is common to hear an employee asking passengers: "Would you like an ounce of caviar before your flight?"

At the lounge, which includes a full-service brasserie with leather banquettes and gold finishes, the menu of complimentary offerings features sirloin steak with red wine jus and salmon sashimi with blood orange ponzu. The caviar will run you an extra US$85 (S$109) or 8,500 miles.

Amble around the rest of the 40,000 sq ft space, and you might spy Japanese cheesecakes and earl grey lemon shortbread cookies behind a glass pastry case; or a spa-goer nursing a pineapple, lemon and butterfly pea flower juice after a massage. You might even catch a bartender pouring a nip of rare Japanese whiskey at the gold-lined Art Deco bar.

To enter, you will need to flash a business class ticket for a long-haul flight on Delta or a partner airline.

Airport lounges were once pit stops where business travelers could grab a paper cup of coffee and a handful of wasabi peas before a flight. Now, they dangle wood-fired pizza ovens, seafood towers, sushi bars and espresso martinis on tap.

Lounges operated by American Express are introducing menus by award-winning chefs Kwame Onwuachi, Mashama Bailey, Michael Solomonov and Sarah Grueneberg.