Emirates London Gatwick Lounge

The London Gatwick Emirates lounge stands almost as an oddity: it is one of the largest lounges at London's second airport: almost as large as the main British Airways lounge. And yet it only serves two or three flights a day.

The lounge itself is in the usual bland Dubai Bling colours of Emirates, with little exciting in the way of variety.

It had superb catering, an OK bar, and decent showers. Yet, the best thing that can be said about it is that it has a lovely feature fountain.

London Gatwick Emirates lounge review

London Gatwick Emirates lounge is found in the not very distant realms of the main part of the North Terminal, to the left after duty free, and then up the corridor where the No1 lounge now is, and where the old BA lounge once was, before it moved terminal. Take the life up one floor, or take the stairs if you want to avoid the party animals heading to the Plaza lounge.

It is very similar to the lounge in Heathrow, and indeed other Emirates lounges around the world. The only difference is the Gatwick lounge is U shaped, while the Heathrow lounge is oblong.

A joint Business and First lounge, there are no extra facilities at all if you are in First: everyone gets the same rather unexciting aesthetic, lifted only by the fountain as you enter.

As you walk in you can be struck by the size of the place: it is designed to accommodate two full A380s and it is rarely at capacity.

The lounge is arranged in a U shape, just as the old BA lounge was, on which floorplan it sits.

As you enter, the signature fountain is right ahead of you, and a strange rectangular thing it is. To the sharp left is the dining area, but if you carry on walking in a circle, there are banks and banks and banks of seats. Acres of them, all in rows, but there is not much variety in terms of colours, design or even fabrics, and all is under the low office like ceiling. A few objet d'art, like the standard Emirates horse racing sculpture, dot the lounge.

As you carry on, there is a bit of an outside view, and then a seating area arranged like a cinema, with a huge flat screen TV, often showing the BBC News Channel. Inland from here is the refectory area, and small self serve bar.

Keep on walking, because few people explore around here, as there is yet another identical seating area, and then another chamber with yet more identical seats, and a small coffee area.

The whole of the Emirates London Gatwick Lounge just comes across as very dull, and bright too, with the lights on full, and with the tinkle of the fountain having all the atmosphere of a suburban Chinese restaurant. It does the job, but there are far better variants.

Keep on walking, and eventually you get to the business centre, which has a number of work desks, and indeed PCs. This is by far the quietest part of the lounge.

Finally, there is a linking corridor which goes via the bathrooms, and links up with reception.

When it is time to board, the Emirates lounge at Gatwick is one of the few in the world which doesn't offer direct boarding from the lounge to the plane.

Food

It is the excellent dining which draws many passengers to the lounge, in some cases three hours before the flight.

Now, the food offering is strictly a buffet affair, in line with most other Emirates outstation lounges. However, the food is a level above that at most Business lounges, which aligns with Emirates' policy when the outstations were designed, of aiming for the middle ground between business and first. You can, for example, get a decent four course dinner with steak in the lounge, but it comes from the buffet, and the circular chiller fridge, which is a signature part of many Emirates lounges.

At breakfast time, for the early morning flight, there is a full cooked breakfast, with the full array of sausages, eggs, mushrooms and the like. There are plenty of chilled options in the fridge, from cold cuts of ham and cheese, to salmon, and fruit.

Then for the lunchtime and evening flights, the mains options are significantly better than you get in most other lounges, with fillet steaks for example, chicken dishes, pasta, and English specialities. There are about a dozen individual dishes lined up in the heated cabinet, and most of them are really good. As a Business Class passenger, this is a great buffet selections, and the quality seems to surpass that at Heathrow. Even the curries come with poppadums and chutney, while the fish has a full selection of vegetables.

However the starters come from the chilled counter and have a straight-from-the-fridge temperature. They are good, with even some interesting canapes, but you'll need to leave them out for around 15 minutes to warm up.

Desserts are equally fantastic at the Emirates Lounge Gatwick buffet, with plenty of good cheesecakes and tarts, plus again local English variants like miniature Bramley apple crumble. There is also a decent cheese selection.

Unfortunately for desert it was back to the chilled counter which was a shame. I'm not sure anyone really wants their bramley apple crumble with custard served cold.

Bar

The small bar is a real let down at the Emirates London Gatwick Lounge. It is there, and does the job, but could have been so much better implemented.

On the worktop near the dining area there is a selection of self serve wine, with three bottles of white and three of red wine, but these are of mid-range, similar to Tescos, at best.

Champagne is good, with self-pour Laurent Perrier or Rodier, and no limits on refils.

However, the spirits really are pretty basic. There are ten bottles of the classic spirits you might look for, and it's good to see a good Hampshire gin like Bombay Sapphire, but there is nothing special, and it lacks the bar tenders of other upmarket Gulf carries like Qatar and Etihad.

There is beer in bottles below the worktop: there is Sol, Heineken, Brewdog IPA, and even Magners' cider.

Business Facilities

There is, still, a large, and largely run down, Business Centre.

The London Gatwick Emirates lounge is one of the few that hasn't removed it's PCs, and there are 4 in the lounge, along with a decent printer.

Here is also where you'll go to charge any devices, since there are almost no power sockets anywhere in the lounge, apart from a few in the pillars, and a few in the side tables at the back of the lounge.

Decent wifi.

There is also a newspaper rack, which still, amazingly, has paper editions of the papers.

Bathrooms

There are bathrooms, but they aren't very special, and have a kind of run down feel.

There are also showers, but the showers are similar to those in a Travelodge, and are not really very good.

Access

The Emirates London Gatwick Lounge gets even more passengers trying to blag their way in than the Heathrow lounge. These passengers can just buy their way in on the door for US$100 (which converts to around £66GBP) when travelling with Emirates. You can pay to enter the Emirates London Gatwick Lounge, but quite frankly, why bother. There are lounge with a far better bar, although more crowded, for only about 20 percent of the cost.

Of course there is free access to Emirates first class and business class passengers.

Emirates Skywards Gold, Platinum and iO cardholders flying with Emirates or Qantas get access, as do Qantas Gold, Platinum, Platinum One and Chairmans Lounge members travelling with Emirates.

Video: Emirates Lounge

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