Terminal 1, Frankfurt Airport, Germany

Neil Scrivener reviews the Lufthansa Business Class Lounge (The Panorama Room) by Gate A26 in Frankfurt’s Airport (FRA).

Introduction

This is my review of the Lufthansa Panorama Room in Terminal 1 of Frankfurt’s Airport, which is in the A-Gates area.

There are two Lufthansa lounges in A-gates, this one and the more standard Business Class Lounge by Gate A13. Both of these lounges are in the Schengen area – where as B-Gates are outside the Schengen zone.

Visited

July 2024 at 16:30

Entry Conditions

I am still getting my head around how Star Alliance’s policies work, however in essence;

• Flying Business Class or First Class grants access (no companion allowed)

• Star Alliance Gold Members in any class (with a companion, who has to be on the SAME flight)

• You can pay between €25 and €50 for access

There is also a separate Senator Lounge, which is open to Star Alliance Gold members, or passengers flying First Class.

I’m still getting my head around Star Alliance’s tiering – but it seems unlike BA whose lounge access starts at Silver, lounge access on Star Alliance is Gold and above.  

Opening Times

The lounge is open daily between 06:00 and 21:30.

How to Get There

This is quite easy to find!

It’s quite a walk away from Security, and heading towards Gate A26 onwards – so if your gate is A1 to A13, and you are tight for time, you may want to think about visiting the A13 lounge.

Heading towards Gate A26, you will the entrance to the lounge, tucked away next to the Duty Free shop.

As you enter the lounge you’ll be greeted by the very friendly and helpful Lufthansa agents.

Layout

Compared to ‘generic’ lounge over at A13, this has quite a quirky and ‘unconventional’ feel to it.

Making a right at the front desk will take you to a relatively generic airline lounge feeling room – complete with high tables and dining seating. There are food and drinks stations here.

Heading to the left of the font desk takes you to a sort of ‘red room’ where there is more dining seating, and more food and drinks stations.

Out from the ‘red room’ there is a long corridor which has all kinds of different ‘rooms’ off it.

The rooms themselves are relatively small rooms (there are about 6 or 7), and at times I thought may even be private (they are not), and are furnished with sofas, tables, chairs, etc.

I didn’t find anywhere to work, unlike the A13 lounge – but there were plenty of tables for either eating or doing work on a laptop.

Food and Drink

Drinks

All of the drinks in this lounge are self-service. They were no different from A13 lounge.

Because of the style of the lounge, the way the drinks were serves was in-fitting with the unconventional style – which is quite fun!

There did seem to be a wide range of soft drinks, German beers, spirits and wines. As I’ve written about other lounges in Frankfurt, there is the rollout of alcohol free beer – which is really good, and helps when driving the other end!

Food

I am not sure if the food is identical in this lounge as the A13 or not – it had the appearance of being mostly the same.

The food was……well…….a but “meh” with some hot dishes, pastas, breads, and other items. It’s no real different to a Priority Lounge in my opinion.

Wifi

I found the Wifi in the lounge to be fast and reliable for what I needed it to do – so no complaints there.

Showers

I was again surprised (in a good way) to find there were showers in the lounge – often it’s something that’s overlooked in short-haul or domestic lounges.

I didn’t go into the showers themselves, but they can be found at the end of this rather fancy corridor! Possibly these showers followed the fun theme of the lounge too!

Conclusion

Compared to the A13 Lounge, this lounge was a lot quieter on my visit, and good fun to be in, through its unconventional layout.

Of course, compared to a lounge like the Cathay Pacific Pier lounge, this lounge isn’t that unconventional, but by German standards it was – and it was certainly a good change from the more ‘generic’ Lufthansa lounges!

It did seem there was more variety of food and drink in this lounge too!

Ultimately, this is a refreshingly different lounge from Lufthansa’s usual Business Class lounges – and I’d be happy to go back!