MANY international travelers will have access to better lounges at the PudongInternational Airport as the Skyteam Airline Alliance will ask its member carriers to sharelounges with other alliance passengers at the airport.
The alliance plans to have its members, now scattered at the airport, located inTerminal 1, which will make it easier for passengers to access lounges, Chen Yiyan,director of Airport Service-China for Skyteam, said yesterday.
Skyteam is the world's second-largest airlines coalition after Star Alliance and has 19members.
"China Eastern Airlines, for instance, will build a flagship lounge at the terminal buildingthat will be open to passengers of other Skyteam members like China Southern,Korean Air and Air France-KLM," Chen said.
Meanwhile, passengers of China Eastern and China Southern will also be able to uselounges abroad built by foreign airlines belonging to the alliance.
Currently, most foreign airlines' passengers at the Pudong airport use a commonlounge built by the airport in Terminal 1. Other lounges with better facilities built byairlines are scattering in different places or terminal buildings.
The Shanghai Airport Authority will invest 1.2 billion yuan (US$195 million) to renovateTerminal 1 of the Pudong airport to expand its capacity to 37 million passengers a year.Construction is due to begin by the end of the year, when China Eastern will build itsnew lounge.
Lounge sharing has been tried at London's Heathrow International Airport, where KLMairlines built a lounge, allowing passengers of its partners to use it, Chen said.
"The method helps KLM to amortize the cost of the lounge faster," Chen added. Otherairlines pay to let their passengers to use the lounge.
Shanghai-based China Eastern and its subsidiary Shanghai Airlines joined SkyTeam inJune to gain access to the alliance's network. Shanghai Airlines left Star Alliance in2010 after it was acquired by China Eastern.
