The Flagship We've All Been Waiting For

You see this view??  This used to be my view each and every stop through LAX.  Now, NOT SO MUCH!

You know what?  I'm mad.  Do you want to know why I'm mad?  I know you don't really, but this is my blog and so I'm going to tell you anyway.  Prepare to be humble bragged within an inch of your life!

Yes, you're seeing this.  There's bacon.

The new Flagship Lounge at LAX's Terminal 4 is too nice.  Yes, dammit, you heard me. There is good food, and not just in the exclusive 'flagship dining' area, but on offer to everyone else as well.  There's an impressive self serve bar with Grey Goose, Hangar 1, Black Label, Woodford, Bombay, and all manner of fun options, as well as a bloody mary station, and non-alcoholic beverages including cold brew and an espresso maker.  Plus this week- custom, made to order Pho.  In case anyone was wondering- they had me at NOODLES.



Décor like JFK, food much better.

It's quite a bit better than the location at JFK, and that's saying something because JFK isn't at all shabby.


Frikkin' pho station.  For serious.

 

Food....

....And more food.

And here's why that makes me mad.  I'm mad because I've been carefully cultivating my disgruntlement with the new renovations to the terminal 4 Admiral's club for months.  MONTHS, I tell you.  Despite opening a new location in terminal 5, the loss of square footage in terminal 4 has been severely detrimental to the customer experience, and that's putting it lightly.  It's overcrowded, overrun, and not relaxing at all. 

You could go down to terminal 5, sure, but that's a decent hike, and even that has been crowded of late.  Instead, I've been taking the new connector over to TBIT and hitting up the KAL lounge on my priority pass.  This is no hardship, as I'm addicted to the (free) $1.99 spicy noodles there.  However, access there isn't open until 12pm, and Mrs. CruisingAltitude isn't a fan of the food offerings. 

This is all to say that now I'm left in a frustrating, angry-ifying quandary- the new lounge is legitimately wonderful, not quite beating out the Qantas lounge, but definitely trying to.  However, I'm only allowed in a few times a year, when I'm flying internationally since I'm perpetually buying double-deep-discount tickets to everywhere.

Livid, I am.  So.... I angry-scarfed down my custom made pho, maliciously drank (a couple) glasses of Bollinger champagne, and finally belligerently swiped a few bottled beverages from the self serve fridge, and eventually wandered out to face up to the Qantas lounge dragons at TBIT.

My diamond shoes are definitely a little tight, and I fully admit this is all ridiculous, but so is flying to Hong Kong for 48 hours, so what do you want from me?

More on all of that soon....

~CruisingAltitude