Review: LOT Polish Airlines Business Lounge Warsaw

After a memorable three-day stay in Poland, it was time to head off on the next leg of my round-the-world trip. We called an Uber (exceedingly cheap in Warsaw), told the driver “lotnisko” (airport), and were quickly on our way to back to Warsaw Chopin Airport to catch our flight to Zurich and then onwards to Hong Kong.

LOT Polish Airlines Business Lounge Warsaw – Entry & Access

Chopin Airport is located relatively close to the city centre, and it was only a 15-minute drive before we were dropped off in front of LOT Polish Airlines premium check-in.

Check-in was quick and painless, and our luggage was through-checked all the way to Hong Kong despite the first flight being on LOT Polish Airlines and the second flight being on Swiss.

We were guided towards a dedicated fast track security line for business class (and Star Alliance Gold) passengers, which spat us out right in front of the LOT Business Lounge.

LOT Polish Airlines Business Lounge Warsaw – Seating

The lounge is pretty small, since everything is packed into quite a small space on the upper level of the airport concourse. For this reason, the lounge is “all-action” straight upon entering, with seating and dining areas located immediately in front of you.

On this particular day the lounge was packed and felt very messy. The fact that the lounge is shaped like a long, thin corridor doesn’t exactly make things feel more spacious either. However, I should note that the interior decor at least lends itself nicely to making things feel less claustrophobic, with glass walls and ceiling fixtures letting in natural light whenever possible.

Besides “dining table” seats, the lounge also had three of these awesome-looking hammock seats, which were very comfortable.

Much like the Skype rooms in Brussels Airlines’ The Loft lounge, I had never seen anything like these in a lounge before, so props to LOT for originality. Next to the hammocks was a mini-library of sorts, where travellers could take or add books to the collection as they wished. Another creative touch!

Towards the back of the lounge, there was an area decorated with tree leaves, and the upholstered chairs here looked very comfortable. I’m sure that at a less crowded time this area would have provided a nice ambience.

LOT Polish Airlines Business Lounge Warsaw – Dining

The food spread was pretty standard. In terms of hot food, there was beef stew, mixed vegetables, chicken alfredo, and a pasta dish. You also had cold sandwiches, potato salad, and a charcuterie spread to choose from.

The taste of the food met my expectations for this lounge, but unfortunately didn’t exceed them. Still, I always appreciate when a lounge offers a varied selection of food and drink. While I’ve been in enough airport lounges to find the “standard” lounge food offering a bit dreary sometimes, for the most part I’d still rather be enjoying the food in a lounge than shelling out money to eat at an airport restaurant.

LOT Polish Airlines Business Lounge Warsaw – Other Facilities

Since the lounge is so small, there’s no dedicated area for computer workstations. Instead, there are “desks” spread out in various nooks and crannies across the lounge. I suppose I can’t fault LOT for this since it’s all they can do given the space constraints.

Star Alliance are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, so there was a model 787 airplane, decked out in the Star Alliance livery, on display near the foyer.

The lounge was also running a promotion in partnership with Yonelle, a Polish cosmetics shop, where you could get certain makeup and massage treatments at no cost. I can’t comment on the quality of the treatment since I didn’t make use of it, but it’s pretty cool that they offer this service.

First Class passengers, HON Circle members, and Star Alliance Gold members can access a separate part of the lounge known as the “Elite Club”.

Unsurprisingly, this area of the lounge was also tiny, and it was effectively one small room. There was a seating area with some chairs and tables and some desks for people to catch up on their work. Notice the “Celebrating 20 Years” banner hanging from the ceiling.

There was also an area in the back of the Elite Club with lounging chairs, which overlooked the rest of the airport concourse and actually felt quite nice. Unfortunately, as with pretty much every other part of the lounge, this area was packed to the brim, so I didn’t get any pictures. The food spread in the Elite Club was also the same as what was offered outside in the main part of the lounge.

We only had about 15 minutes’ time to wolf down some food in the Elite Club, since we had some last-minute gift shopping to do at the airport’s Relay shop. We took the stairs down to the main airport concourse, which is also how you’d enter the lounge if you were connecting in Warsaw rather than originating.

Conclusion

The LOT Business Lounge at Warsaw Chopin Airport is a nice place to kill some time prior to your flight, but I wouldn’t make any special effort to spend extra time here. The hammock chairs are fun and unique, and the Yonelle makeup treatments could be useful to some passengers, but on the whole the lounge is a bit too small and cramped for it to be a truly enjoyable experience. I realize that it’s mostly out of the airline’s control, but the next time refurbishments at Chopin Airport are scheduled, LOT could really take the opportunity to expand their flagship lounge.