United Airlines offers an arrival lounge to intercontinental business and first class passengers in its new home in Terminal 2 at London Heathrow. Open from 5am – 2pm each day, Air Canada and South African Airways also allow their business class passengers access to it.
The concept of an arrivals lounge is brilliant – even flights form the U.S. west coast are barely long enough for a solid rest, so allowing first class passengers to sleep through breakfast service and then enjoy a breakfast and shower upon landing is a big selling point to flying in first class on United.
> Read More: Frankfurt to San Francisco in United Airlines First Class
John flew in Global First and from LAX and because the lounge was empty, I was allowed in as his guest. Typically, no guests are allowed, even for full-fare passengers.
The lounge is cozy, with a large room featuring newspapers and magazines, food, and drinks. Eggs are also available for order. I had an English Breakfast on my BA flight from Frankfurt to London earlier in the day, so I just had a smoothie, Bircher Muesli, and some fruit.
The food was of good quality.
I took a look at the showers as well – there are actually a lot of them and each shower suite has a rain shower head and nice amenities from Korres.
Staff was gracious and helpful and I enjoyed the brief visit to the lounge.
wait ’till you see the UA Club and GF Lounge…
neat. Hope UAL wakes up and provides more of this kind of thing.
Used the lounge in mid-August. Seems not many F/C passengers are making use of it, though better not to have it too crowded. Was on an AC J ticket, but as an AC Elite was able to guest a friend in who had arrived on another AC flight (albeit in economy). Staff was very friendly and accommodating, and the food selection far better than in the old AC Arrivals Lounge, with the benefit of cooked-to-order eggs in addition to the buffet offerings. The shower products were the same brand I received at the Athens IC a year or two ago, high quality but drew suspicion from the security screeners at T5 later in the day as they insisted on swabbing them for explosive residue!