I had a chance to visit the KLM lounge in Houston, Texas (Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport – IAH), and here’s why you should give it a pass.
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Location
The KLM Crown Lounge is located in Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport’s Terminal D where foreign carriers typically depart. The lounge is conveniently located just across a bridge walkway from the C and E terminals. The same walkway is at the base of the escalators that lead to and from the intra-terminal train system.
From a perspective of entering the terminal, the lounge is one of the most convenient, it’s also across from the Duty Free shopping area. However, for passengers departing on KLM flights from gate D13, it’s farther away than the Air France lounge directly across from those departing gates. If location is the sole factor when comparing the Air France vs KLM lounges (Houston) then in this (and only this) category, Air France would be the better choice.
Access
While I am a Priority Pass Select holder, I was a business class passenger from Houston to Amsterdam and thought I would give it a try to start my first KLM experience. Due to flight loads and a preference to offer space to its passengers and elite frequent flyers, it may restrict lounge access around its daily departures east to Europe for both KLM and Air France flights.
Size
While much larger than the embarrassingly small Air France Lounge, it’s still far smaller than some of the other lounges available in Houston.
Despite arriving two hours prior to my departure time as a single guest, I struggled to find seating and felt guilty occupying one of the last tables which sat as many as four guests.
Additional seating is available at the end of the hallway away from the main portion of the lounge.
Food
Imagine a vending machine that only had 4-5 choices and didn’t require any change to purchase – that dream world is is roughly 70% of the food offerings from the KLM Crown lounge.
The lounge does offer a smattering of hot and cold prepared items but staff had trouble keeping them stocked. When I initially arrived, the soup was out for about 20 minutes. Salad was offered intermittantly as was a cous cous dish that was, admittedly, very good. If I had not been to the Air France lounge before I left, I would say this is the worst lounge at any Houston airport.
No self-serve drinks other than juice at the lounge, you must wait for an attendant to “serve you.” I almost never drink anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a deal for me to ask for someone to grab me a Diet Coke, but even casual drinkers will find the selection limited and it’s in no danger of becoming a watering hole for abusers of open access to adult beverages.
Amenities
As this KLM Crown Lounge is at an outstation with a single daily flight, it’s understandable that some of the normal lounge conveniences are missing. Of the most basic, however, is a shower but this lounge doesn’t offer one. Even the limited Converse Bank lounge in Yerevan, Armenia offered a shower for those in desperate need.
There are no sleeping areas, no extras like a Playstation area in the Air France lounge in Paris, or a barber shop at the Emirates lounge in Dubai. Essentially, if the gate area is crowded and you’d like a light snack that may or may not be available, consider the KLM Crown Lounge.
Conclusion
Assuming a passenger does not have access to alternative lounges like the nearby American Express Centurion lounge, the United Clubs throughout the airport, or (depending on the access) the unbelievable Polaris lounge – this particular lounge will do. However, considering there is no self-serve alcohol, very limited food options, no shower, limited space, and wi-fi is available for free throughout the airport, I’d recommend spending your time somewhere else.
In fact, if you’re a Priority Pass Select member through the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, try Landry’s instead where the cardholder and a guest are entitled to $28/each from the menu with essentially the same amount of space, free wi-fi (throughout the airport) but seafood from a proper kitchen.
Given the amount of SkyTeam flights out of Houston including KLM, Air France, Delta, and LATAM (among others) it might be time for the alliance to consider investing in an updated centralized lounge as they operate at other major outstations.
What do you think? Have you been to the KLM Crown Lounge in Houston? How was your experience?
I’d rather walk the terminals
“There are no sleeping areas, no extras like a Playstation area in the Air France lounge in Paris, or a barber shop at the Emirates lounge in Dubai.”
Maybe better to use example of other outstation lounges that offer things this lounge doesn’t, rather than using examples of airport lounges in their home station.
Have you ever seen a Dutch restaurant abroad?
That explains why lounge food offering for KLM and food in general is terrible in the Netherlands. People prefer to fest on raw herring, discusting frikandels that look like poor and oily krokets and olibollen
This was the second lounge i visited when i got my new priority pass for the first time ever. The club in Phoenix was the first one ever.
They used to be out of soup back then too.
Showers really aren’t that common at outstation lounges. Outside the place you mentioned at EVN, I really don’t know what you are comparing with here- the average UA or DL lounge in the USA is unlikely to have any of the amenities you mentioned, and you certainly won’t be seeing any of them in the vast majority of European contract lounges, even in places with a great deal of traffic (e.g. MAN, AGP, ATH).
DL’s route network is pretty slim out of IAH, and I want to say that LATAM no longer operates out of IAH?
Better beer and wine selection than UC or AC at IAH, but the true standout is Cadillac Bar in terminal A. I guess I don’t know what more I could possibly expect from a KLM priority pass lounge at the outest of outstations.
Wait. Air France and KLM both operate their own lounges in Houston? They are the same company. No wonder KLM and Air France are such a mess. I used this lounge a couple times before Delta stopped allowing Sky Club members to use Air France or KLM lounges domestically at airports like Houston or Dulles without Delta lounges. It would be nice if there was a Sky Team lounge at Houston for Delta, Air France, KLM, and Aeromexico.
IAH has the only stand alone KLM Crown lounge outside of AMS. Both AMS lounges have showers. All other KLM lounges share space with Air France.
I would love for the IAH KLM lounge to have showers when they do the updates for Terminal D.
The old Continental lounge in Terminal E had several showers but they converted that floor to a Polaris lounge. Zero non-Polaris United lounges have showers.
Priority Pass lounges in LUN, KTM, VNO, and many other airports around the world lack beds and showers.
Are there really plans for updates to Terminal D? It’s about time! Terminal D is stuck in 1960 with an overall poor design. A better idea would be to demolish it and build a new terminal – minus those silly OTG ipad restaurants.
I am sad to say I have been in this lounge, It is a disgrace to the industry.