Without wishing to be elitist about these things, I have a question: whatever happened to exclusive airport business lounges these days?

There was a time when these little oases of civility and sobriety were a sanctuary from the noise, hustle and bustle of the airport main concourse where you went to read the papers, have a drink or light meal, and in some lounges you could even have a shower too! Generally speaking, you paid extra for your ticket so that you would be pampered on the ground before you were pampered some more in mid air; and why not?

For the last 5 to 10 years there has been a gradual decline in the standards of these little utopic places whereby airports have downgraded these places to the point that you may as well remove the signs, knock down the walls and merge the lounges with the rest of the airport. I guess the reason for the downgrade is because more and more companies associated with mass travel are offering these not-so-exclusive places to wider and wider groups of travellers for a relatively modest membership fee. The commercial equation is simple: if you offer something at a relatively high price, then you expect a smaller number of people to be able to afford it, thus you make it exclusive. The flipside of the equation is just as simple: if you offer it at a low price then you will attract considerably more people and the facility becomes inclusive. I suppose it makes commercial sense, to offer a facility cheap and stack it high with humanity. But, you must also run it cheaply in order to maximise profits.

So, out goes the good food, the range of decent drinks, the hushed atmosphere, the personal service and overall standard of behaviour. In its place you get crowded spaces, bad furniture, non-existent service, loud and inconsiderate groups of people who are hell bent on getting their money’s worth of whatever they can get their hands on from magazines and newspapers to half a meter pile of food on their plates and cheap beer.

Two extreme examples of bad business lounges I came across were: Dubai International Airport where one early morning I walked into the business lounge to wait for my connecting flight, I could not find a single seat anywhere in the lounge because many people were sleeping across sofas or using double chairs to stretch out on so much so, I swear there were people actually sleeping on the floor of the lounge. Another truly terrible place was at Sana’a Airport Business Lounge, which was ridiculous beyond belief. The place smelled like a urinal, it had sofas, which made a flea market seem like the Ritz, and the only available refreshments were suspect bottled water and a bowl of apples. Surprisingly, the place was full.

On the whole, airport standards are changing a great deal these days anyway. Emphasis is placed on security and retail. Once you convinced the authorities that you are not about to cause mayhem with your nail clippers, toiletries and liquids, you are let in to be fleeced out of your last penny on supposedly “Duty Free” goods while you wait for your flight to depart never on time.

I predict that over the next 10 years airports will start to allow non-passengers to come and shop at the airport and leave via a specific gate that leads on to the car park instead of an airplane. You don’t even have to worry about visas, passports, inoculation, phrase books, foreign money or business lounges.

Can’t wait!