Inspired by a job I should have applied for, but didn’t due to hesitation on job requirements. On the off-chance the right person reads this, I’d love your thoughts.

I’d probably never pay for a business class seat on a plane (with dollars, for the foreseeable future), but I’ve splurged on airport lounges for several years now. They make traveling immensely better, mainly by providing (1) a much better place than the terminal to wait until boarding starts, and (2) a reliable option for food that will be faster and tastier than what I’d find in the terminal otherwise, all for (what I consider) a reasonable subscription fee (I typically gain access via credit card or via airline status). I stop into a Centurion Lounge 20+ times/year as I fly IAH-SFO, and I’ve seen lounges for United (both Polaris and United Club locations), Delta, American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, along with other lounge collections (e.g., Plaza Premium, Priority Pass, etc.).

the business of centurion lounges

Centurion lounges originally were included as a perk of the Platinum or Centurion (“black”) card. You paid the annual fee for the cards and got unlimited access to the lounges as a benefit. With complaints about lounge overcrowding mounting, AmEx decided to being charging for guest access: $50/person ($30 if the guest was aged 2-17) for those who didn’t spend enough money on a Platinum card. Other airline lounges sometimes charge for drinks, though I don’t believe AmEx charges patrons for anything on the inside of the lounge. Much like a restaurant, AmEx is primarily paying out on rent (fixed, and space within airports is constrained as it is), labor (there’s a small army of folks dedicated to servicing the lounge), and food/drinks.

Given that the guest entrance fees were initially created to stave off overcrowding, why would AmEx bother improving the lounges? I believe it comes to down four key factors:

1. Competition in the credit card lounge space is heating up as Capital One and Chase begin building out their own lounges, which undermines arguably the number one selling/retention proposition of a highly core and profitable product for AmEx

2. Opportunities to delight Centurion cardholders, who likely have CLVs orders of magnitude higher than even the average Platinum cardholder; my point on lounges helping to retain profitable customers especially applies here

3. Opportunities to bolster other AmEx brands, such as Resy

4. Improving the lounges’ profitability in their own right, though I don’t expect lounges to amount anything beyond a rounding error at best for a company pulling in ~$10B in annual operating profit

jobs-to-be-done

The first question, of course, is to focus on why people use an airport lounge in the first place. A few ideas come to mind:

• Cardholders looking to kill time (especially if your flight just got delayed!) - I assume this is the most common reason someone would use the lounge, as folks with a plane about to leave likely will go straight to their gate

• Cardholders looking to eat and drink (Centurion lounges, in my experience, consistently have the best food out there, and I’ll never forget the fried chicken I had in the IAH lounge)

• Cardholders looking for a space to work (esp. business travellers)

• Cardholders looking to snag some shut-eye (esp. if they’re transitting to a faraway destination with a large time zone difference) - though Centurion lounges I’ve experienced are (1) not open 24x7 and (2) only accessible with a seat on a departing flight, so this may be less common for AmEx in particular

• Cardholders looking for a cleaner place to use the restroom or freshen up (AmEx uses the verbena hand soap from L’Occitane and it smells amazing)

• Finally, it’s worth calling out a very important group: non-cardholders that didn’t get a choice. I’m talking about kids, and nailing the experience for them can drive not only better loyalty from Mom and Dad (who just paid a handsome sum to get in) but also cement a decades-long loyalty. Get ‘em while they’re young.

improvements to be made

helping cardholders kill time with magazines, cards, and board games

How people choose to kill time will vary, and most folks are perfectly content to leverage whatever screens are available to them or chat up folks at the bar. That said, I believe that providing magazines, board games, or decks of cards to folks (perhaps on a library-like checkout basis) could be beneficial to those experiencing a long delay, or to families looking for less screen time for their kids. Watchouts include making sure there’s sufficient table real estate and that what you lend out gets (1) returned (2) in clean condition. If this is successful, you might see an increase in lounge entry fees collected or cardholder satisfaction levels.

extending amex’s lead in food

From my outsiders’ perspective, it appears that Centurion lounges routinely feature recipes from local chefs; assuming that ~half of lounge guests are local to the area, there’s an opportunity to leverage AmEx’s acquisition of Resy by highlighting the restaurants even further (or suggesting that guests can book a reservation for when they return). Here, you could measure success quite directly by tracking the uptick in reservation demand for the highlighted restaurant on Resy.

Additionally, AmEx could potentially pull from United’s Polaris playbook in offering an a-la-carte lounge menu to Centurion cardholders. This likely requires a much greater effort, but I’d be interested in seeing how such an offering would move the needle on cardholder retention (both for Platinum and Centurion cardholders; you wouldn’t want to anger the bulk of your users by dangling a carrot in front of them they’re not allowed to have).

quiet areas

Some folks that are extremely busy (and I’ve lived this before) are more than happy if you merely don’t bug them and let them help themselves. For these people, a designated quiet section (potentially even without children - the family rooms that exist in some lounges are amazing) could be incredibly valuable. A bit of sound deadening foam on the walls and plenty of outlets and desk space could go a long way for a time-crunched consultant. Althought I believe it’s rare that someone would want to sleep for the reasons discussed above, providing eyemasks could be a nice touch that shouldn’t break the bank - I found some incredible cheap ones on Amazon for under 20 cents each (though I assume Amex would want to splurge at least a little bit more). Continuing with the library checkout idea, you might let cardholders borrow high-end noise-cancelling headphones for their stay in the lounge. Again, success here looks like improved satisfaction.

providing a faster check-in experience with self-check-in

It seems to me that most folks are on the “happy path” for checking into the lounge, which could be automated (scan your boarding pass, scan your ID, swipe your card, and get a ticket for entry). I’d strongly bias toward leveraging that to free-up lounge staff to spend more time on the inside - cleaning and clearing tables, serving drinks, making the bathroom’s as clean as at Buc-ee’s, etc.