The Lufthansa Lounge in Newark Liberty International (EWR) is currently just a shell of its former self. It beats waiting in dilapidated Terminal B, but set your expectations very low in the pandemic era.
Lufthansa Lounge Newark (EWR) Review
Access + Location + Hours
I had some time before my last United flight to visit the lounge. By virtue of both my business class ticket and my Star Alliance Gold status, I had access. Do note this important exception to lounge access for United Premier Gold (or higher) travelers. While United’s own Star Gold members do not receive access to United Cubs on purely domestic itineraries (unless traveling in business class on premium transcontinental service), they can access the lounges of others Star Alliance members. The B3 satellite in Newark Terminal B has both a Lufthansa and SAS lounge. You can access this lounge even if you are traveling from another terminal, but will have to re-clear security to go to Terminal A, C, or another satellite in B.
During the pandemic, the lounge opens at 2:45pm and is open until the last Star Alliance flight departs.
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Seating
The lounge is normally divided into two sides, Senator on the right and business class on the left. The Senator side historically had a wider selection of food than the business side. But during the pandemic, the partition between the sub-lounges has been opened and you can sit wherever you’d like.
You have your choice of more comfortable lounge seats or there is a dining area with tables and chairs.
Food + Drink
Don’t even bother to “eat” in this lounge. There are water bottles, crackers, Lay’s potato chips, and Oreo cookies. Yep, that’s it. The beer taps are shut off. Coffee machines shut off. No wine is on offer. Good thing Lufthansa has not cutback on its onboard dining…
Restrooms
Clean restrooms are available. No showers.
Magazines + Newspapers
Magazines and newspapers are another casualty of the virus.
CONCLUSION
This lounge is hardly worthwhile right now if you are hungry. But it’s quiet and a far nicer place to wait than in the terminal area. Let’s hope the dramatically scaled-back service will not last much longer…
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Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lufthansa-ground-more-planes-during-190525709.html
Can you bring in food (e.g. sneak in food)?
Not sure.
Similar to IAD. No point in going unless you just want a place to sit and your gate is nearby. No German beer is particularly sad. On the other hand, I understand that LH has pre-COVID style onboard F&B, so there is that. I have not flown TATL since last December, but I think a UA lounge followed by a UA TATL flight right now would be pretty dismal.
This is far worse than the IAD LH lounge. They have sandwiches and other prepared food available. It looks like EWR has solely shelf-stable pre-packaged/processed food.
Not the best comparison, but this is such a massive contrast to how the ATH LH lounge looks. Full food selection, a person working the coffee machine and bar. The food selection of course is a bit cut back as there is less space to place it on (the lounge is small and one of the table is now taken up by the coffee and bar operator.) and most likely partial cost cuts. The EWR lounge just looks a bit sad.
I’m all for covid precautions abut I have to scratch my head on this: No magazines because too many touch surfaces…..but then everyone can touch the fridge handle to get a bottle of water. Sometimes all these precautions don’t make sense. I did not see any signage about mask wearing…was it optional or required? Hopefully the latter. Thanks for the update!
This all situation with virus is stupid! I’m not saying there is no virus, but how can we live in constant fear? I had and didn’t even know, no symptoms… People who are at risk should take more care(even before covid19), rest of us need to start leaving normally. And F*** new normal!!!
Any word on the lounge’s offerings 1 year later?