Review Aspire Lounge Birmingham Airport

Contrary to what you might think, the airport in Birmingham, a city about 200 km west of London, is not exactly a secondary airport.

Sure, it's not London Heathrow, but it's still busier than most Italian airports.

Emirates flies here, complete with lounge, Turkish and many other carriers. It is also the home of Jet2, low cost focused on British holiday traffic, plus of course the better known Ryanair, EasyJet and the revived FlyBE.

The airport is not small. Jet2 has its own terminal, or rather all of departure zone A is exclusively dedicated to this carrier.

The other airlines are on the opposite side of the airport. This time I was flying KLM together with my family. Unfortunately, no SkyPriority at this airport.

Location

Coming out of Duty Free, this lounge is the first one you find. Just turn left and the signs for the two Aspire lounges at this airport will be clearly visible, as will the entrance to the lounge, which overlooks the very corridor leading to the gates.

Access

There are several lounges in this airport, some were still closed due to covid. We headed to the Aspire lounge. One of 4 accessible with the Priority Pass card. The network Aspire has a worldwide presence and we have already reviewed several rooms of this brand.

Upon arrival, however, we were told that without a reservation we could not enter. Effectively upon entering A link is specified on the Priority Pass App so that you can book the visit, which, however, we had not done.

Little harm, having Platinum status in the Flying Blue program, we still had immediate access to the lounge. It was enough to present the card and all three of us were welcomed free of charge.

Services

The lounge is a long corridor overlooking one of the airport's aprons: indeed, the natural light and view are the best things this lounge offers.

It is not huge, but considering the priority given to business and elite passengers of the various airlines, it is certainly very usable.

In terms of services, it does not offer much, in fact. There are no services either. In case of physiological needs you have to go outside in the terminal.

Food & Beverage

We arrived at lunchtime and it looked like the locusts had come through. To say there was little or nothing is an understatement.

The staff, however, was present and kept replacing the offerings, which were still rather paltry. That said, when I think that even recently ITA Airways still does not offer anything hot in its lounges, I cannot complain about the plain rice and vegetable chicken offered in this lounge.

The most unpleasant thing was the bar counter, the only served area of the lounge. It was bordered by two garbage bins, the same ones you find on the street in Italy. Truly an unprecedented sight.

In conclusion

As for this Aspire Lounge, I must say that it does not deserve a sufficiency. There are no bathrooms, the buffet is ridiculous, and admission by reservation is an absurd task.

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