Review : Star Alliance Lounge - Roissy CDG Terminal 1

Star Alliance airlines operating flights outside the Schengen area have a shared lounge in Terminal 1 of Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. A recently renovated lounge by the way.

Who has access to the lounge?

Common to several airlines, it is therefore open to a large number of passengers. First of all, business and first class passengers of Star Alliance airlines flying outside Schengen, Turkish Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai, Asiana, Aegean, Air China, ANA, Egyptair, Eva Air and United.

It is also available to passengers of these airlines traveling in economy class but with Star Alliance Gold status.

Location of the lounge

The lounge is therefore in the “non-Schengen” zone. It is located after the police controls but, serving several satellites and the security controls happening at the entrance of each satellite, it is located before the security controls in question.

This is a real problem when you know how quickly the controls can be saturated in terminal 1 and even if the passengers having access to the lounge are all eligible for priority lanes for the controls.

Passengers who leave the lounge have to walk a bit to get to their satellite and must anticipate the potential length of time they will have to wait at the checkpoints, which takes away some of the serenity and can even be a stress factor.

Lounge Layout

We find the lounge at the end of a corridor after having walked a little after the police controls.

Once past the reception desk, you enter a large room filled with tables, sofas and…many passengers at peak times like here.

The place is quite dark but just enough to be restful without being gloomy.

The tones are warm and the whole look is quite premium.

If we go to the end of the room we find what is one of the strengths of this lounge: a terrace!

There is no view but it’s always nice when the sun is there.

A staircase allows to go up to the floor…

We find the same decoration but the room is brighter since there are windows all along.

However, the layout is less crowded and customers obviously don’t bother going upstairs: this area is more pleasant than the one below when the lounge is crowded at peak times.

There is also an area reserved for first class passengers…. which I may visit one day.

The conditions not being optimal for a beautiful photo report, I propose you a 360° visit of the empty lounge…

Food

A self-service buffet is available on each floor.

Cold cuts, cheese and smoked salmon…

Bread and pastries :

Fruit and dairy :

A hot offer adapted to the time of day. Here tomatoes and pancakes… may be a bit limited in variety.

A consistent beverage offering. Softs, wines and spirits.

When the lounge is full, you have to wait in line…

A very solid catering offer, superior to that of the Lufthansa Business and Senator lounges in the Schengen zone and, above all, to that of the indigent SAS lounge which are the other Star Alliance airline lounges at CDG T1.

Bottom line

A very nice lounge, very nicely renovated, which also offers a nice terrace and a substantial food offer.

I will simply make two reproaches.

First of all, its location forces passengers to anticipate their departure by “betting” on the length of the queues at the security checks. Moreover, the passenger who does not know the layout of the airport can underestimate the distance to the departure satellite.

Then its congestion at peak hours. Not that it is small (nearly 1000m2 for a capacity of 220 people) but that it accommodates so many airlines that it can become overcrowded at certain times, which makes it much less pleasant. It was mainly this fact that made my experience much more mixed than if I had been there at a quieter time.