London Heathrow T3 Aspire Lounge
The Club Aspire lounge at London Terminal 3 accommodates up to 120 passengers in a small, compact lounge, with a complimentary bar, refreshments and snacks.
Premium food and drinks, showers and spa treatments are available for a fee.
The food is often better than you might expect for a third party lounge, but it can be hard to get at it before it vanishes, and even harder to eat in peace and quiet.
London Heathrow Aspire lounge Terminal 3 review
The London Heathrow Club Aspire Lounge Terminal 3 is a small lounge, that if it were not for all the people, would be a very good lounge indeed. It has a staffed bar, a large buffet dining area, four different seating area, a quiet area, and a good view of the gates.
Alas, since it started to become the London Heathrow KLM Lounge and the Air France LHR lounge, when they moved to Terminal 3, and shut down their own very large lounge, it has become insanely crowded during the day, to the stage where only these airline passengers are admitted.
The half decade old lounge is airside, and a little hard to find. After security, leave the shopping concourse, turn left at the Qantas lounge, and follow the directional signs for 'Lounge D', which is located just by gate 9. Often there is a sign outside the door warning that only KLM and Air France passengers are admitted due to the overcrowding.
Club Aspire at London Heathrow have introduced multiple zones within the lounge, which means a huge variety of seating areas; if only all lounges would do this.
Starting opposite the buffet, there are two long dining benches, with inset power sockets. Beside this there are three small round tables and bench seating. Opposite are a row of 2 plus 2 seats with little tables. It is rare that anyone other solo travellers sit here. And so it carries on through the rest of the lounge. By the windows there are mini sofas, and then further on single seats looking out over the view. Around the mid point of the lounge are lots more mini round tables. There are two smaller corridors at the end of the lounge. The middle one is the so called 'quiet zone' which is anything but: most passengers seem to use this area to take loud phone calls. And even worse, the current trend for taking phone calls on a loudspeaker comes to the fore.
Much quieter is the corridor beside it, which is very dark, and has three small booths, with 2+2 bench seats. These are quite private, and one of the best places in the lounge if you need to work.
Incidentally, the London Heathrow Aspire lounge in Terminal 3 is a joint venture between Airport Lounge Development and Swissport. Indeed, the Club Aspire lounge replaces the former Swissport lounge, and before that, nearly two decades back, occupies the footprint of the old Singapore Airlines First Class lounge. In those days it was a haven of peace: not so much any more!
Sadly, the lounge is badly overcrowded, and making this worse, many solo passengers like to pile luggage on three of the set of four seats around them, giving themselves some space, but resulting in a queue of passengers at the door looking for a seat, and then doing likewise to ensure they have some personal space. Relaxing it is not.
There are also four seats at the bar, which in desperation you might consider taking. Under no circumstance do this, as every few seconds another passenger will lean over you to order at the bar, or to pour water or other drinks that are lined up along the bar. The seats look good in photos, but are totally impractical.
Food
When the lounge opened, it said it would have a best-of British food menu. Alas, the over thousand passengers a day which come through the door has rather put paid to that, and now the main options are curry or pasta, in great big tubs, which come out once an hour and are put in the heated cabinet on the island bench.
There is also a huge tub of hot soup at the end of the buffet, with hot rolls, and often hot naan bread for the curry.
In the second chilled cabinet are a four bowls of salad, with lettuce and coleslaw variants, while up on a higher tower are triangles of cheddar cheese.
Bar
The one delight of the lounge is the fully staffed bar. However, this has seen some cutbacks over the years, and now the only free beer on draft is Birra Moretti. At least it is served in nice logoed glasses. Similarly the choice of complimentary wine has been reduced to just red, or white.
There is a soft drinks dispenser on the left hand side of the bar, with coke and Tango, while a DIY coffee machine is at the other end of the bar, and a hot water and tea machine next to the so-called 'quiet' room.
The Club Aspire lounge also offers the exclusive Spey Tenné single malt whisky, for a charge at the bar.
Business Facilities
There is free wifi, but it is incredibly slow.There are no computers or printing facilities.
There is a newspaper and magazine rack, but it hasn't been used for years.
Tableside charging facilities are there, with quite a few USB ports and wireless charging mats.
Bathrooms
These are in the lounge, but on the other side to reception. You need to cross over infront of the vast queues trying to get in to use the bathrooms, which are quite small but adequate.
There are also a couple of showers here, but the queue to use them can be a couple of hours long: ask at reception for a towel, and indeed for a 'slot' to use the shower. Basic amenities are in the shower rooms.
There is also a small spa: although this is more of a novelty feature to draw in yet more crowds than anything useful. Again on the other side of reception you can get a basic 'treatment' but it can take several hours for a slot to become available.
Access
The list of who can visit the lounge is long, but also very short, because of the crowds.
KLM and Air France Business Class passengers are always admitted, without much of a debate.
Frequent Flyers with status (Gold and above Flying Blue) are also generally admitted, ahead of the pack. However there can be more debate at the desk with SkyTeam Elite Plus status.
After this down the pecking order come those people who have pre-booked directly with Club Aspire.
And finally at the bottom of the heap come those people attempting access with Priority Pass or using a 32GBP daypass on the desk: it is a lucky day when the queues are short enough that that you can get access early in the evening.
Video: Aspire Lounge T3
Variety of seating options
In lounge spa and showers
Often no access unless on KLM or Air France
Air France London Heathrow Lounge