Airport lounges have a dilemma: the more people who can get in, the less special they feel. At the Skift Aviation Forum, Rasha Masri, vice president of lounge partnerships and business development at American Express Travel, laid out how the company is trying to have it both ways — more access, without wrecking the experience.
The most interesting idea is a new format called Sidecar. Where Amex's Centurion Lounges are big, full-service spaces aimed at longer stays, Sidecar is deliberately compact and built for shorter visits. Grab a coffee, check emails, board the plane. The logic is simple: not everyone needs a hot buffet and a shower, and travellers popping in for twenty minutes are taking space away from those who do. If Sidecar locations scale up, they could absorb a chunk of demand that currently overwhelms the flagship lounges.
Capacity is the other half of the equation. Masri said Amex is adding lounge space overall, but also getting smarter about managing the flow. Card members can now join digital waitlists and use a lounge-finder tool to plan visits before they even reach the airport — which should mean fewer frustrated queues at the door and better spreads of footfall across the day.
There's also a behind-the-scenes point worth noting. Masri argued that hospitality operators should be brought into airport planning much earlier, because decisions like where the lounge sits, whether there's a lift nearby, and how much natural light comes in shape the whole experience. Retrofitting a good lounge into a badly planned terminal is an uphill battle; building one in from the start isn't.
For travellers, the takeaway is that premium airport hospitality is starting to branch out. If you hold an Amex card, expect more options at more airports — including quicker, smaller stops that suit a fast connection rather than a three-hour delay. The open question, which the industry will be watching closely, is whether all this extra access dilutes what makes a lounge worth seeking out in the first place. More doors open is only a win if the room behind them still feels worth entering.
Story first reported by Skift.
