On my recent trip from Paris to New York I was able to visit the Admiral’s Club, whilst on the connection back to London I went to the Cathay Pacific Lounge, located next door.

The lounges are located on the 1st floor of the terminal, above Duty Free and are reached by two lifts. Once you exit the lift turn right and the two lounges are opposite you across a ceiling void:

(The Emirates and Etihad lounges are there also).

Admirals Club

Upon entering there are three podiums with members of staff who check your right to access and then invite you in to the lounge. There are lots of seats and work areas, as well as some seats facing the runway.

View of runways

There were lots of electrical sockets between the seats and free WiFi.

Hot and cold food was self-service, with eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes on the hot plate. Rolls, cereal, yoghurt, cheese, ham and a wide range of drinks were laid out.

Two large TV’s were quite noisy, and as most AA flights leave around the same time, the lounge got pretty busy until the first flights started leaving. It was a 10-15 minute walk to the gate for my JFK flight through a busy terminal.

Cathay Pacific Lounge

BA uses the Cathay lounge for its flights and so I got to spend a few hours here waiting for my return connection to Heathrow. Whilst there were about 20 people there when I arrived, they cleared out as soon as the agent announced boarding for the early BA flight to London.

Fairly soon I had the lounge almost to myself. A very typical Cathay design – bright, light and white with wood finishes the lounge did not disappoint.

There were lots of seating areas:

Computers were available for passenger use:

Hot and cold food was available. The hot items were the same as in the Admiral’s Club but there was a wider selection of cakes, muffins etc.

Drinks were self-service.

The lounge enjoyed the same expansive views of the runway as next door. The inbound aircraft for my BA flight arriving:

My inbound American Airlines plane in view from the lounge:

If you have a choice then pick the Cathay lounge, it was a have of tranquility in comparison to the Admiral’s Club.