Talking Point: In praise of business lounges

I was in Addis Ababa recently, listening to business men grumble. They were particularly negative about having to fly anywhere via London.

Hating Heathrow has become a commonplace of conversation worldwide now and this is embarrassing if you’re British. Something has to be done about the running of the place, its obsession with shops over service, its security delays, its staffing levels and in particular its labyrinthine corridors with their god-awful, DHSS-waiting-room-currently-under-renovation decor. I could say nothing in its defence except that if you’re going to be delayed or stranded I can think of nowhere better than in some of Heathrow’s wonderful lounges.

The lounge for me is the best thing about flying. Lounges are not cramped or prey to turbulence. Lounges are quiet and spacious and don’t give you jet lag, and even if something goes seriously wrong in the lounge you still don’t fall out of the sky.

I have one or two all time favourite lounges around the world. If I’m lucky enough to be flying business class I arrive really early, make straight for lounge-land and ask the nice ladies on the desk what the chance of a delay is. To be honest I could happily spend all day in a lounge that has unlimited internet and bar access. Throw in the day-beds and dimmed lighting you get in the Sanctuary section of British Airway’s Heathrow Terraces lounge, or the circular champagne bar in its First Lounge and I’m in heaven.

Terraces even has the Toy Box, where children of all ages can be sent to thump each other and play with the Brio train set. When planes can offer all that (especially the segregation of kids, so someone's bored little darling is not repeatedly kicking your seat from behind) then I might prefer flying to lounging. For the moment though, point me to the racks of periodicals, the plasma screens and the Travel Spa with its shiatsu massage room and you can hold the plane as long as you like.

We live at such a pace these days. People come straight off the plane, into the car and off to a meeting. In a world where every hour of time has to be accounted for, isn’t it nice to have inertia imposed on you, specially when it comes in such luxurious surroundings? And yet I often see men (it’s usually men) giving the nice ladies on the desk a hard time about when their flight will be departing. (By the way have you noticed how often lounge reception is manned by glamorous middle-aged women? I think some clever person has worked out that flying delays bring out the truculent little boy in many business men and this mindset is best dealt with by calm elegant mother figures.) Rather than give vent to frustration, why not give in to temptation and enjoy? It’s not as if you can’t be in contact with the rest of the world – by phone, fax, email and conference line – if you really have to.

A few years ago I was in a BBC radio studio taking part in a discussion programme when Tony Blair called an election. We were only two minutes into the show – I don’t think I’d even spoken – when everything went live over to the newsroom and didn’t come back. For the next hour anxious researchers kept coming in with coffee, buns and sandwiches and apologising. I told them not to worry. I was actually being paid to sit in a comfortable chair and eat and drink as much as I wanted. What was not to like?

Given that the majority of business lounge users are on a salary, I think people should actually be cheering every time a delay is posted. Stevenson said it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive, but that was in the days before the business lounge. Now I think he’d agree it’s best to be delayed. Certainly if the Travel Spa and champagne bar are free.