Re-opening Terminal 1 at Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) meant the return of Lufthansa’s Senator lounge (defacto Star Alliance). Here’s a quick look.
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Access + Hours + Location
Star Alliance Gold passengers traveling in any class of service have access to the lounge as well as Star Alliance business class passengers. Guests may be required to Those who neither hold status nor are traveling in business class or first class may be permitted entry for €59 as well as those flying on partnering airlines. Only guests that depart from Terminal 1 gates 60-68 are allowed entry. The lounge notes that children under the age of 2 are permitted for free and that airline staff is not permitted access. The lounge is located inside security (or passport control if connecting.)
While this is the defacto CDG Star Alliance lounge (any qualifying member with a boarding pass for an accompanying flight is permitted), it should be noted that there is a Star Alliance lounge that operates later (until 10 PM) in the Terminal as well. This is a different lounge than the Senator Lounge and that lounge is available for Priority Pass members, the Senator Lounge is not.
Hours of Operation
- Sunday 05:45 – 20:30
- Monday 05:00 – 20:30
- Tuesday 05:00 – 20:30
- Wednesday 05:00 – 20:30
- Thursday 05:00 – 20:30
- Friday 05:00 – 20:30
- Saturday 05:00 – 20:30
The Lufthansa Senator Lounge is below Gate 60 and near Duty Free. There is a lift or stairs that bring guests to the lower level. Crowds at both the departure gate above and then waiting for the lift make it kind of a pain to get to. Making my way through an active boarding gate seemed like a recipe for disaster and I wished there was another way.
Seating
Upon entry to the lounge, some seats at a curved table around the wall are available for visitors. High-top tables and chairs fill the space near the food and drink areas with tables, chairs and booths lining the edge of the room.
A secondary room at the end of the U-shaped lounge held more seating but this area was packed with people and not photogenic at the time of my visit. It seemed odd to me that most of the visitors were well away from the door and food in such a crowded area when far more seating was available close to service items and the exit.
There is no smoking area in this lounge.
Food + Drink
During my morning visit, breakfast was available. In addition to croissants, pan de chocolate, and muffins, the lounge also offered an array of pretzels in keeping with a Lufthansa signature item. Yogurt, charcuterie, and cheeses as well as fresh berries, muesli, and cereal were also on offer.
The food was fine but nothing to write home about. It’s certainly ample before a short flight to Star Alliance hubs such as Frankfurt, Munich, Istanbul, Vienna, Zurich, Copenhagen, and Geneva for example but if using it to fly partners before a long haul flight, both the offering and its volume would be insufficient.
Coffee, tea, juices, and milk accompanied the breakfast menu but for those imbibing, an array of beer, wine, and liquor was available as well. The drinks were self-serve both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
Conclusion
For passengers traveling on Star Alliance flights out of Paris, the Lufthansa Senator lounge is a reasonable solution. There’s some seating for limited passengers but a large bank of flights would push this lounge over the edge. The food was good enough for short flights and a limited spread but not enough for a long-haul flight with lots of seats. It’s a serviceable option in Terminal 1 at Paris Charles De Gaulle International Airport at the moment.
What do you think? Have you visited the Lufthansa Senator lounge at T1? How was your experience?
@Kyle, you should probably amend your post and/or title. *A Business Class can access LH/LX/OS Business Lounges but not Senator Lounges. The two may share an entrance at a lot of outstations (and have similar F&B and/or amenities), but for access purposes, they’re different. *G and *A First can use both, but *A Business cannot.
“Guests may be required to ” – You forgot to finish the sentence, but presumably meant to write “to travel on the same flight as the *G member.”
This article is quite poorly written. What does it mean that the LH C/SEN lounge “is the defacto CDG Star Alliance lounge?” The Star Alliance lounge is, well, the “Star Alliance Lounge” that’s branded as such.
As Tennen noted, Star Alliance business class passengers cannot access the Senator lounge, which is the lounge name in the title; they can only access the Lufthansa Business Lounge unless they also hold Star Alliance Gold status. Long-haul First Class passengers, however, are usually allowed access to the Senator Lounge.
This sentence is rather confusing: “This is a different lounge than the Senator Lounge and that lounge is available for Priority Pass members, the Senator Lounge is not.” Although it’s technically correct, it’s confusing that “this” and “that lounge” refer to the same lounge. It might be worth being more explicit about which lounge is part of Priority Pass.
For a blog that’s Lufthansa-centric, and for a blog owner who’s usually endearingly detail-oriented, this article is a disappointment, and I’m surprised Matthew allowed it to be published.
This is an horrible space, a dark dungeon of a lounge- the photos make it seem substantially more airy and bright than it actually is. It may be worth briefly popping into the lounge for a quick snack, but the gate area is a much more pleasant space in which to wait for one’s flight.
When did it open? We were in Paris in November. According to the website, it said all the Star Alliance lounges in Paris was closed.
The Frankfurt lounge was very nice.
@Matthew S. It opened December 1st: https://liveandletsfly.com/cdg-terminal-1/
This is a review of the Lufthansa Business Lounge located to the right of the entry desk, NOT the Senator Lounge which is located to the left of the entry desk.
Kyle, did you get a chance to check out the Star Alliance lounge while you were at CDG? I’d like to see a review of that to compare and contrast, and decide where to spend my time if I’m hanging around in CDG.
@O’Hare – I didn’t have a chance, but I did see a lot of the rest of T1: https://liveandletsfly.com/cdg-terminal-1/
“if using it to fly partners before a long haul flight, both the offering and its volume would be insufficient.”
Sorry, but that is entitled gluttony speaking. You can make a decent breakfast from what is listed there, even for a long haul flight (especially since, you know, that long haul flight will be presumably serving food as well).
This is a fine review of the Lufthansa Business Lounge. The Senator Lounge is on the other side of the welcome desk (to the left) behind the door. Small, same food, more comfortable seating.
Any general review of the renovated Terminal 1? Curious what has changed.
Lufthansa Group flies only short hauls out of CDG…so those 2 lounges ( which only differ in name) are more than fine.
Note that in CDG1 there is also a Star Alliance branded lounge used by Star Alliance members flying long haul out of CDG1 (like UA, ANA and AC). Also note that there is a SAS lounge available to passenger flying to Scandinavia. And other Star members like Croatian do use third Party lounge… Finally for those flying to Vienna, Geneva and Zurich be aware that some flights are operated in codeshare with Airfrance. In this case flight leave from CDG2 where no Star Alliancz lounge is available.
I did not know there was a SAS lounge in CDG. Will check it out next time!
@Matthew, I visited the CDG SAS lounge a couple of years ago. It was very, very small and packed. The agents also had to constantly turn away pax who didn’t have access. Things may have changed since then, but the best thing I can say about it is that it beat the gate area.
Also, you may want to edit Kyle’s posts or ask him to do so. His two most recent reviews have contained wrong, misleading, or incomplete info on *A lounges, lounge access, and HH breakfast benefits.
The SAS and Salon ICare lounges are accessed from the same elevators as the *A lounge. But they are smaller and not as good as the *A lounge. For terminal 1, unless things have changed, *A is the best, LH second. But *A is before satellite security.
Nothing at 1 is as good as the AF lounges in 2.