Terminal lounging

Some airlines aim for a feel that’s the same worldwide, whether in a terminal, an area of a terminal, or their lounge. Emirates’ and Singapore Airlines’ lounges, for example, have long had a certain look and feel to them. The various Virgin carriers, whether Atlantic, Australia or America, have a design language that makes it almost effortlessly clear that this is a Virgin product.

Others aim for a hybrid, with the airline’s own brand mixed with a local sensibility that can work well – or badly. With this kind of design, only the airlines with the strongest brands can stand up to the mixture.

Usefully, recent weeks have brought us two airport projects from Australian airlines that show both approaches.

Virgin Australia is redeveloping its home in Melbourne’s Terminal 3 over the next three years, with an initial phase scheduled for completion by mid-2019 that doubles down on a major passenger experience trend: self service. Virgin will offer “enhanced” self-service kiosks, which will enable check-in, boarding pass printing, bag tagging and even adding extra bags.

In phase two, Virgin Australia will add pre-lounge security and a premium entry for business travellers and frequent flyers, a popular perk among people who fly the most.

Unlike Sydney and Brisbane, however, the Melbourne fast track entry lane will also offer bag drop. To enable that security change, the second phase also includes building a new internal ramp between Terminals 3 and 4 that allows the former’s security facilities to be moved.

Virgin Australia says it and Melbourne Airport “are working together to finalise the design process, with the works anticipated to begin in 2018”, although initial designs are bang on the Virgin Australia brand, with lots of white, red accents, purple for the premium side of the airline, and more mood lighting than you can shake a stick at.

Qantas, meanwhile, has now opened its new combined businessfirst lounge in London Heathrow, serving the Red Roo’s upcoming London-Perth-Melbourne services and the future London-Singapore- Sydney flights. The lounge is beautiful, making the most of a two-level space, but there are a lot of beautiful lounges around. The key to this lounge is its solid footing within the Qantas brand, but with a big hit of local identity too.

A gin bar is as British as it comes, but with Australian gins sitting alongside the usual London lot including Something Wild’s Australian Green Ant, Sullivan’s Cove Hobart No. 4 single malt, and Brookie’s from the Cape Byron Distillery. Special cocktails are designed by the Qantas team of mixologists.

The food, too, is designed by the Neil Perry Rockpool team, and includes takes on British and Australian faves, rather than a buffet that has the same dishes wherever you are in the world. There’s the pot pie, ploughman’s platter and cream tea kind of classic, plus “healthy brunch bowls with eggs, avocado and kale, and zucchini and haloumi fritters” that are as Australian as that first onboard Tim Tam for many passengers.

The sofas are instantly recognisable as the Qantas chair shape, but in a Chesterfield buttoned leather fabric, and the standard Qantas lounge chairs scattered around that makes it instantly clear that this is a Qantas lounge.

Qantas ambassador Miranda Kerr, meanwhile, has a line of so-garishthey’re- great teacups and teapots from Royal Albert, and these are on offer in London despite the airline already having revamped its signature teapot with its recent Noritake line by design partner David Caon.

Speaking of Caon, Qantas’s London lounge and Virgin’s Melbourne terminal projects both involve architectural practice Woods Bagot, with which Qantas’s design partner David Caon was formerly associated. Qantas’s project names the firm, while Virgin Australia’s has the Woods Bagot watermark on its image renders.

With an increasing number of design and consulting firms offering their services in the passenger experience world, it’s fascinating that both Australian airlines should choose the same one.

‘Initial designs are bang on the Virgin Australia brand. ’