Southwest is finally building lounges — a first in the airline's 50-plus-year history — and frequent flyers immediately noticed an omission: Phoenix Sky Harbor, where the airline carried 17.2 million passengers in 2025, isn't on the opening list. The first four Southwest Icon lounges will open in late 2027 at Austin, Baltimore/Washington, Honolulu and Nashville, with the network planned to grow to at least 11 locations.
The Phoenix hold-up isn't a snub. Chase and lounge operator The Club opened a Sapphire Lounge in Southwest's Terminal 4 base in November 2024, and it proved a bank-branded lounge could work inside a Southwest terminal — a concept the airline had resisted for decades to keep fares low. That lounge started tiny: roughly 3,500 square feet with just 78 seats, the smallest in Chase's network. It was instantly mobbed, forcing a reservation system in June 2025 and a physical expansion completed in September. Chase has since cut off general Priority Pass access and shut down reservations, effectively reserving the space for top-tier cardholders ahead of the new premium Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card launching in 2027.
The lounge has personality, too — design firm Corgan built the space around a restored 1963 Airstream trailer, craned into the terminal and rolled into position overnight between the last and first flights. It sits on a patio facing the concourse, and American Airlines passengers can walk to it easily from their own gates, since American and Southwest together move nearly three-quarters of Sky Harbor's 51.6 million annual passengers.
So why not add a second lounge nearby? Space, mostly. Phoenix's big new lounge project — a 10,000-square-foot facility in the expanded Terminal 3 North concourse — is useless to Southwest flyers because the terminals aren't connected after security. Meanwhile, American was named the anchor tenant for Sky Harbor's planned $4.5 billion terminal, so a Southwest-exclusive Phoenix lounge may not materialise until the 2030s. Speculation favours Houston Hobby, Chicago Midway and Las Vegas for the next round, though all three have tight gate-area real estate.
Why it matters for travellers: if you hold a Sapphire Reserve or plan to apply for Southwest's upcoming premium card, Phoenix is already a viable lounge stop in a terminal where none existed before. And as Southwest's Icon lounges roll out from late 2027, entry is expected to be tied to that new Chase-issued card — a perk that simply didn't exist for Southwest flyers until now.
