Terminal 8, John F Kennedy Airport, New York
Introduction
This is my review of the American Airlines Greenwich Lounge at JFK’s Terminal 8.
The story behind this Lounge is quite interesting! It was previously a mixed Flagship and Admirals Club, which I reviewed here. This was then merged to make a large Greenwich Lounge – which is for those traveling in Business Class/Club World, BA Silver, or OneWorld Sapphire members.
This is a brand-new lounge, having opened in 2022, and I believe the merger/change happened in October 2022.
Opening Hours
The lounge is open daily from 04:30 to 01:15.
Entry Conditions
This is a lounge intended for those flying Flagship Business or Club World. OneWorld Status holders of Sapphire and Emerald are allowed access. A very handy sign is outside the elevators!
On American’s side, as I understand it, Domestic flights from JFK to Dallas, Honolulu, Chicago, Charlotte and Maui are also allowed access – but curiously not Los Angles, San Francisco or Miami! All very confusing!
I believe you can also pay some $150 for access!
How to Get There
The lounge is very easy to find, after Security you will find the elevators dead in front of you.
If you’ve arrived on a connection, heading towards Gates 1-12 you’ll find the elevators on the left.
Once checked in, it’s down the New York themed tunnel into the lounge.
Layout
This has a very modern layout to it – it’s light and airy with huge windows overlooking the airport and the city.
The lounge has a variety of casual seating and low tables around it.
If you’re eating, there is more formal dining seating.
One thing which I said in my review of the Flagship Lounge, was that there wasn’t really a business centre or place to work. The good news is that this has changed with the merger!
A feature I really like is ‘throne chairs’, which offer some great views of aircraft and airport, operations against the backdrop of the city.
There are two other welcome additions through the ‘merger’, the first is the re-use of the Flagship Dining area to a larger dining area called the “The Tasting Room”.
There second fantastic new area is The Bridge bar! This is a great area overlooking the concourse of Terminal 8.
Food and Drink
Drinks
With the new merger, drinks in the lounge are a mixture of self-service and bar service – whether you need a soft drink or something stronger. There are self-service soda fountains and coffee machines.
As I noted in my review of the Flagship Lounge in Miami, there are more varieties of beers than one could ever need. There is also a good stock of wine.
There is also a little cocktail station to make your own cocktails – though I’m not sure if this is manned during more traditional drinking hours.
Food
Breakfast
On the food side, at the time I visited when it was the Flagship Lounge, it was breakfast time. I have to say there was a huge variety of breakfast items, whatever you may want. In this case, it included cooked breakfast items, pastries, fruit, cheese – and a toaster.
For breakfast, the food was impressive, and even though I don’t ‘do’ breakfast – there were still plenty of options for me.
Lunch/Dinner
The self-service stations had a variety of salmon, meats, potato, pasta, salad, cheeses, etc. There is also a soup station.
I had noticed that compared to my breakfast experience in August 2022, the lunch/dinner offer in the new Greenwich Lounge seemed to be rather less in variety, almost primitive for the size of the counters – possibly because this investment has been moved over to the Soho Lounge.
Wifi
As always, the Wifi was excellent.
Showers
Having landed early in the morning, I decided to use the showers. I believe there may be around 4 or 5 showers. The shower room was available for me, and seemingly it wasn’t necessary to reserve them – I just walked in.
The shower rooms are very large, the showers hot – and they even had Dyson hairdryers!
Conclusion
I’ve been really impressed with JFK’s new lounges, however the ‘new’ Greenwich did feel a slight step back from what was the previous Flagship Lounge on the food side. This may have been a ‘bad day’, or may be because the more ‘premium’ food now sits in the Soho Lounge.
It is however a real step up to the Admirals Club and American Airlines are really moving onwards and upwards with their lounges – especially the Flagships.
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