Netflights.com lists the 20 best airport lounges in the world

To help avoid these airport blues, Netflights.com has taken a sneak peek into airport lounges around the world, to see if your time can be spent being less stressed and more travel happy.

Airports can be stressful experiences, even for the calmest of travellers. From uncontrollable delays and immeasurable queues, to strict suitcase weight limits and expensive food options, there’s plenty to get people agitated. It’s more commonplace than you might expect. A new research by Netflights.com revealed that 66% of UK travellers find airports stressful.

To ease – or intensify – this stress, the average person spent GBP 58.77 (USD 77) in the run up to boarding their flight. Most of this cash goes on food (53%), hot drinks (44%) and alcohol (28%). Almost half of the respondents (46%) also admitted to purchasing items they didn’t even need – as something to do before jetting off.

Lounge access

Collating data from 149 lounges around the world, Netflights uncovered what you can expect to pay where, and what you’ll get. The amenities in each lounge were weighed up against its cost and applied some data science magic to give you a score showing whether it could be worth booking.

With the average cost of accessing an airport lounge only at about GBP 37.32, with free Wi-Fi, inclusive drinks and premium food all available, there’s plenty of reasons to be more chilled out than wound up.

Scoring the number one spot in our ranking of best-value lounges is the Al Ghaza Lounge in Abu Dhabi International Airport

Scoring the number one spot in our ranking of best-value lounges is the Al Ghazal Lounge in Abu Dhabi International Airport – it’s low-cost, exuberant interior and efficient amenities mean it topped the list of lounges worldwide. The best value in the UK is Manchester Airport at GBP 25. London Heathrow costs GBP 40 and London Gatwick GBP 50.

Despite these low prices, the research revealed that 87% of travellers have never booked themselves or their families into a lounge as they thought it was too expensive (40%), only for members (23%), or they just didn’t know how to do so (20%).

20 best airport lounges

Here are the top 20 best value airport lounges, to help you plan airport layovers effectively:

1. Al Ghazal Lounge by Plaza Premium Lounge Terminal 2, Abu Dhabi International Airport
2. Strata Lounge International Terminal, Auckland Airport
3. Lounge @ B, Terminal 3, Dubai International Airport
4. 1903 Lounge Terminal 3, Manchester Airport
5. Plaza Premium Lounge (Arrivals) Terminal 2, Rio de Janeiro Galeao International Airport
6. BGS Premier Lounge Terminal 2, Beijing Capital International Airport
7. Loyalty Lounge Terminal 2, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport
8. Plaza Premium Lounge (Lounge B) Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi International Airport
9. Clubrooms North Terminal, London Gatwick Airport
10. SkyTeam Lounge Terminal 4, London Heathrow Airport
11. Neptuno Lounge (AENA VIP Lounge) Terminal 4, Madrid Barajas Airport
12. Pacific Club Terminal 3, Ninoy Aquino International Airport
13. SkyTeam Lounge Terminal 1 (International), Sydney Airport
14. Bidvest Premier Lounge International Terminal A, Tambo International Airport
15. The Club at LAS, Terminal 3, McCarran International Airport
16. Marhaba Lounge Terminal 2, Melbourne Airport
17. Premier Lounge International Terminal, Ngurah Rai International Airport
18. Star Alliance Business Class Lounge Terminal 1, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
19. dnata Lounge Terminal 3, Singapore Changi Airport
20. Plaza Premium Lounge Terminal 1, Toronto Pearson International Airport