Qantas Domestic Business Perth Lounge
The new Qantas Business Class lounge at Perth is a welcome development in the old Domestic terminal at Perth Airport.The new lounge has the latest design of seats - 350 of them no less - much better catering, and two pleasant walk up bars.
There are two new business lounge dining concepts - a Italian pizza bar with a pizza chef, and a wine bar where customers can enjoy barista coffee and freshly made croissants in the morning and a glass of wine and canapáés in the evening.
PerthQantas Domestic Business lounge review
The new Qantas lounge for Business Class and Platinum Frequent Flyers in the Western Australian city of Perth pretty much doubles the lounge space at the Qantas domestic terminal with the new area having seating for more than 350 people.
The Perth Qantas Business Lounge is on the lower level of the terminal, just beside the escalator to the Qantas Club, and it has several distinct zones offering the choice of areas to dine, work and relax.
As you walk in you'll see the two welcoming podia - instead of the usual desk - and a strange solo table and chair at the entrance: the classic waiting chair incase you are waiting for someone to join you.
You then enter a large long open space that has a colour palate that is tailored for the huge Western Australian landscape, in various shades of beige and brown. It looks a little 1980s, particularly with all the stripped pine, but in a good way.
As you walk around, the showers and bathrooms are on your right.
Then at the top of the lounge is the tiny wine bar, with all of three seats. The anti-pasta at the end is a welcome note, but to get at the wine you generally have to elbow other customers out of the way.
You pass the dining, buffet, and the pizza ovens, and then turn another corner.
Here is the main bar, with a bank of seats in front of it, a strange round table at the far end, and TV screen looking over the bar.
And that's kind of it.
The lounge was designed by architects Woods Bagot, which is behind the new Brisbane and Los Angeles Business Lounge, and the common styling shows.
Food
The Perth Qantas Business Lounge features a la carte dining menus designed by Neil Perry: check out the menus which are printed around the buffet area.The main spread is on the central island buffet on weekdays, with salad, cold cuts, and cheeses.
However, you can also seat at the high dining tables for a 'plate of the day' delivered by waiters - the menu for these is on the table.
There is also the famous Italian Pizza Bar concept; admittedly, it looks like something out of a restaurant in Paramatta, but the important thing is you can get hot food, with lots of filling pizza, made with a huge number of toppings throughout the day. They come in great big squares, and are chopped up and laid on the buffet table.
Bar
There are two places to get a drink in the Perth Qantas Business Lounge. The wine bar serves up espresso coffee throughout the day and then from noon turns into a wine and snack bar.There are bottles here, so you can self serve, and cocktail hour from 5-6pm on weekdays (4-5pm in winter) with cocktails designed by the Rockpool Mixology team. Two of the best cocktails here are the vodka-based Pomegranate Spritz, and a gin-based Black Swan.
There is also a "make your own" juice station in the morning by the buffet breakfast.
Or, walk around to the main bar iteself, where there is beer on draft, including Little Creatures, Heiniken, Fifty Lashes, and 5 seeds cider.
There are three TVs around the bar show three different channels at a time; it can be quite a sociable space.
Bathrooms
There are 4 new shower suites with en suite bathrooms. These are really good, and great if you've just arrived on the long flight from London, and need a shower to freshen up. There are Aspar amenities in jars.Business Facilities
There are two large reading racks with all of the state's newspapers and a few magazines.There is free wifi in the lounge.
Virtually every seat has a power socket, plus a USB socket.
There is one long bench, with two iMac computers and colour printer and photocopier, if you need one.
There is also a 14 seat meeting room near reception, which is free-of-charge and has presentation and conference call equipment.
Don't miss the small 'viewing area' room, which has Sky News throughout the day and major sporting events when they occur. Alas, the TV screens in here are tiny, and are high up on the wall.
Access
The Perth Domestic Business Lounge is open to Qantas customers travelling in Business and Platinum and Platinum One Frequent Flyers, plus Oneworld Emerald card holders, such as British Airways Gold.
Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers can visit the domestic lounges after their flight, so it acts as the Perth Arrival Lounge, so long as you are a Platinum.
Video: Qantas Domestic Business Lounge
