Emirates Perth Lounge

The new Emirates lounge in Perth is a delight, with a large central seating area. There are a huge number of the classic Emirates beige seats, on a deep blue carpet.

There is a separate dining area, with buffet dining. Two small bars compliment the space.

There are additionally showers and a business centre.

It is remarkable that Emirates maintain such a large well equipped lounge for just one flight a day, and also provide top notch catering.

There is one further delight: a boarding gate in the lounge, so you can walk straight on board the aircraft.

Perth Emirates lounge review

Once past security, weave through the Duty free shop, left, past the Koru Club, and down the stairs is the Emirates Perth lounge.

There is a large reception desk, although this seems like overkill for just one flight a day, and then you enter into the light, bright and well lit Emirates lounge. It needs to be well lit, as there aren't any windows: instead the side corridor, which runs beside the lounge and is the exit for Gate 51, occupies a space between the lounge and view, and this has been frosted over, alas.

There are two main areas to the Emirates Perth Lounge: the dining area, on the right, and the main seating area, which occupies two thirds of the space. There is also a small business centre which is right in the middle of the lounge, just at the point at which you enter it. For this reason, there is little privacy in the Business Centre, and it is rarely used.

Being a combined First and Business Class lounge, it is a step above other lounges in Perth, since Emirates, apart from Qatar Airways is the only other airline flying a First Class cabin to the Western Australian capital.

The Perth lounge looks almost like any other Emirates outstation lounge, with rich deep blue carpets and beige leather chairs. When Dubai came up with the design, 20 years ago for the Brisbane lounge, it was innovative, but now it's hard to work out if you are in WA or Gatwick.

All the seats are all fairly similar, arranged in groups of 2+2: effectively the seating is designed for groups of four, but with most passengers travelling solo, passengers dump luggage on the other three seats, and then head off to the dining area, which is why the lounge needs to be so large, to accommodate all the bags on seats.

Almost all the seats have near little side tables with lamps, and sockets for charging. There are double Australian 240 volt sockets, and double USB charging points.

While there are some room dividers, made up of Arabic carved and etched glass panels. However, the lounge is in effect one large room, and the spaces aren't really segregated from each other.

The only features of note are the two TV areas, which have a bank of armchairs overlooking the TV. There is also a bar on the middle island. And that's it.

When it is time to leave, don't walk to the gate. Instead head to the far corner of the lounge, where double doors enter into the airbridge for Gate 51. It's a nice touch, and saves going out into the hoy paloy. The only other lounge with such a feature in Australia is Brisbane.

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.

As a combined Business and First Class lounge, the dining in the Emirates Perth Lounge is top notch, and up to the usual Emirates standard. Indeed, some of the dishes are so familiar, they might be on offer in a dozen other Emirates lounges around the world.

Start in the fridge for entres, with starter plates including usually a very good duck and mint salad, which is the lounges' speciality. However, the starters do 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.

There is a usual hot food area in the Perth Emirates lounge with three main hot options, including beef, chicken and fish, plus decent veggie and vegan options.

There is the usual round Emirates fridge, with lots of plated up small salads and desserts. There is also a huge amount of fish, with grilled barramundi, prawn salad, and lobster salad. Being WA there are also homemade steak and onion pies, and lamb tagine.

Don't miss the large amount of cheese on offer, plus the very good desserts, all plated up and ready to take away.

Bar

Yup, no problem with a bar in the Emirates lounge Perth. Crown Beer and Heineken is in the fridge, two type red and white on the worktop, and a small selection of spirits.

The small bar is a 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 Dam Murphs, at best.

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

Business Facilities

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

The Perth 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.

Where is the Emirates Lounge Perth?

The EK PER lounge is almost too easy to find The Perth Emirates lounge location is airside, so go through immigration and security, head upstairs through the duty-free and then left, and downstairs again. These head towards Gates 50 and 51. At the bottom, turn left again

the Emirates Perth Lounge directly ahead.

The Emirates A380 almost always departs from Gate 51, which is right next to the lounge. There is a reason for this: The Emirates lounge offers direct boarding from the lounge, so it makes sense to use the sole gate that will allow that.

Access

The Emirates London Perth Lounge gets even more passengers trying to blag their way in than the Dubai lounge. These passengers can just buy their way in on the door for US$130 (which converts to around 180AUD) when travelling with Emirates. You can pay to enter the Emirates London Perth 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.

When Emirates operated three flights a day from Perth, the lounge was open 0330-0600, 1000-1245, and 1900-2200, but now is open only for the evening session.

Video: Emirates Lounge

Emirates Lounge video - Click to play

Emirates Lounge video - Click to play