Lounge Review: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge – Halifax (YHZ)
When: November 2, 2024
Rating: 5/10 – Average
Access: Star Alliance Gold
…Featureless…good for work…good coffee.
The Maple Leaf Lounge at Halifax Stanfield International Airport is rather disappointing, especially as this is the largest airport in Atlantic Canada. It’s small, extremely dated, and featureless. The saving grace: kind staff, a decent breakfast buffet, and one of the few lounges with a dedicated business center, which is great for working. The lounge is quiet early in the morning but I would imagine it fills up before the nonstop to London.
The lounge entrance is at the top of the escalators where passengers ascend after security screening. The entrance has a great model of a Boeing 787 and a nice mural – but other than an aquarium, there is nothing interesting about the décor.
Just passed reception, the large business center is on the left in a separate room. Few lounges have such a large business center and the desks are very large and well-suited for work. Each desk still has a landline phone (where you can place calls via a credit card), which is indicative of how dated this lounge is.
Pass the business center on the left is the food section. The Maple Leaf Lounge features a decent breakfast buffet with hot and cold items. There are plenty of soft drinks, coffee, beer on top and, I presume, self-serve liquor later in the day. The Lavazza coffee machines make very good coffee.
On the other side of the lounge, to the right pass the entrance, is the main seating area. This is just a basic room with a variety of lounge style seating, including some high – top tables. There are decent views of the tarmac and aquarium. That’s it!
I have often said that Maple Leaf Lounges in the US and London are nicer than you find in Canada – this lounge is the prime example of that.
I rate this lounge 5/10. Best features: Business center, decent views, an aquarium, nice staff. Flaws. Rather grim décor, dated design, small.
Note: The lounge is NOT accessible to US bound passengers – who are ferried to a separate part of the terminal where they go through US customs at the airport – and can land in the US as a domestic passenger. Unlike Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, there is no transborder Maple Leaf Lounge,.
