I recently returned from a whirlwind tour in Europe, flying Air France Business Class from New-York JFK to Lyon via Paris. To pass security, I used the VIP ONE Lounge at New York-JFK’s Terminal 1, which is where Air France operates out of. This was a fast and pleasant way to get through the TSA Security checkpoint, and soon after I was on my way to the Air France Lounge, which I will review here.

Briefly, the Air France Lounge in New York-JFK Terminal 1 is a very nice facility with a simple but elegant design that reflects the design language of Air France very well. The food was very nice, with various appetizers, mains and dessert options, as well as a good selection of wines, beers and soft drinks. Finally, the Clarins spa is an excellent way to relax and refresh before boarding. This is certainly a lounge I’d like to visit again!

1. Location and hours
2. Entry requirements
3. Seating and design
4. Food and drinks
5. Restrooms and showers
6. The Clarins Spa
7. Summary

Location and hours

The Air France Lounge at JFK terminal 1 can be easily found by turning right after security, and following the signs to Gates 1-3. The lounge will be at the very end of this hallway, dead ahead.

As you walk through you’ll be greeted at the end of the hallway by the front of the lounge, with the Air France sign and logo over a glass sliding door.

As for the hours, according to the Air France website the hours at from 7am to 9pm, but when I was here I left at around 9:30pm and new people were still coming in. Also, I’m sure I remember seeing that the closing time was closer to 10pm next to the entrance, so I’m not so sure what the actual opening hours are. Regardless, I’m quite sure they are open for all Air France departures.

Entry requirements

The Air France lounge can entered by one of three ways:

• First and foremost, if you are traveling in Air France in business or first class.
• Second, if you are a SkyTeam Elite Plus member and ticketed on am itinerary operated by a SkyTeam airline, and are either flying international, or you arrive don an international flight and transferring onto a domestic flight. In practice, however, there are no domestic SkyTeam flights out of Terminal 1 at JFK, so you will always be eligible to enter this lounge as a SkyTeam Elite Plus member. You become SkyTeam Elite Plus by having a second-tier elite status with a SkyTeam airlines (e.g. Flying Blue Gold, or SkyMiles Gold).
• Third, you can enter with a priority pass membership, subject to some restrictions, such as a 3-hour time limit. These days many premium credit cards provide this, including Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital One Venture X cards.

Seating and design

You enter the lounge and find yourself in a long-ish hallway with an open, spacious design. It’s really quite welcoming and I’d say nicer than the average lounge, in great part due to the large windows at the far back.

The desk was staffed by three attendants, which was plenty for the volume of people trickling in. The attendant checked my boarding pass and invited me, stamping the Wifi network and password onto the back of the boarding pass, which I thought was quite thoughtful and beasts running around the lounge to find a QR code or note with instructions.

As you cna also see, the lounge is spread over two levels. The attendants highlighted that both levels have a drink and food buffet, so you can easily choose to go either up or downstairs and you’ll have a similar experience. What I found, though, was that most people end up going downstairs, take food and dirnk, and just end up staying there, so that the upper floor is a tad quieter.

Just to the left of the reception is a small seating area, which was nicely decorated. I do really like the heavy focus on the white, blue and red, which of course are the colors of the French flag and the primary colors of Air France.

To the right is the Clarins spa, but I’ll get into that in more detail. Suffice to say that I made a booking for a treatment as soon as I entered the lounge, which was needed: when I made the booking the earliest slot was at 9pm – any later than that, and I hadn’t been able to do it given the 9:30 pm boarding time of my flight to Paris. So, if you do plan on getting a facial at the spa, book as soon as you get to the lounge!

Then, as you walk past the reception desk, there’s another seating area with some magazines as well:

Entering the bottom floor area, there’s a bit of a division between a ‘lounge’ type area to the right and a dining and drinking area to the left, separated by a divider. To the right, and wrpaping around the dining and drinking area, huddled along the large, beautiful, floor to ceiling windows, are various combinations of tables and chairs to make different setaing arrangements. Below, you’ll see larger lounge chairs and standing labs for a more relaxed vibe….

….but then wrapping around and following the windows there’s also a more restaurant-like seating as well as smaller chairs arranged in pairs of quads.

And if we then turn around and face back where we came from:

Given the very high ceiling in the other corner, this last area does feel a little cramped in comparison. But, that’s really just an effect when transitioning from that space to this one, as the ceiling here is a good height regardless. Throughout these spaces is ample lighting, coming both from the ceiling as well as tall standing lamps that arise from the side tables. I liked this, as it gives the space a homey feel.

Turning the final corner there’s another stretch of such chairs and tables, arranged in quads:

At this point, if we turn left again we will find ourselves in the drinking and dining area, where the buffet of this floor is also located. I’ll get into the food in a moment, but for now let’s have a look at the seating. As you can see below, it’s all restaurant style seating, with round tables with two tables each. This is great for couples but frankly a little cumbersome for larger groups. Those traveling with 3 or 4 people will need to pull tables together.

Having explored the bottom floor, the top floor mostly provides the same kind of space, but with a slightly different layout. There’s a stair case, an elevator as well as an escalator (in the up direction only), accessible from right around the reception desk. Once up there, I really liked the view of the lower floor:

Turning left, you once again first enter into a dining area, with a similar dining setup as down stairs. Again, if you’re traveling with more than two people, you;d have to move together some tables or chairs to accomodate the larger group.

The smaller space in the dining area is apparent because of the absence of the dining-style seating in between the drinks and food buffet. Rather, there’s a ‘ring’ of seating surrounding the buffets, positioned at the windows for some niew views.

In this area is also something of a bar-style seating, along one of the windows. While you’d think this side gives nice views, it actually doesn’t: these windows are actually looking out over the access roadway to Terminal 1, so you’d only be seeign cars…

The second floor also has a small area roped off. These seats are reserved for those flying first class. Every Air France outstation lounge has a roped-off area like this. I understand the need for it, but I do feel like it’s a little awkward.

Overall, I thought the lounge has a nice design, with some big, open spaces, and even in the areas that may feel a little more cramped, the floor to ceiling windows are a wonderful feature to keep the lounge feel spacious. The various seating options should allow you to find a good pace to eat, relax or work.

Food and drinks

The lounge has full buffets and drink stations on both the lower and upper floors, with about the same content and design. I like this, because it takes the pressure off of the buffet at the lower floor, though it did seem like most people ended up going to the lower floor anyway. So, at both buffets you’ll find an appetizer/salad station, a mains station and a dessert station, and in-between there will be soups and breads.

On the lower floor, the food buffet is to the left and the drinks to the right, and as you pass by you’ll pass the appetizers, mains and desserts, in that order. When I came here, however, it seemed they were fresh out of large plates, so I had to grab a couple small ones instead. The larger plated were replenished a little later, though.

Out of the picture, to the left, were some soups in addition to the salads presented here. I tried the kale salad on the left, and the beet salad in the middle, and found the latetr to be particularly tasty and refreshing.

Being French cuisine, the mains were heavy on cheese and cream, which for me is not really ideal. So, I tried the fish, in the left-most oven dish, which was very good, and I tried the chicken fricassee, just to the right of the fish. The latter was my favorite among these two. The other two dishes contained eggplant parmesan, and white rice.

Next followed a bread station, with various delightful options. But of course I have to take the baguette, being in an Air France lounge and all…

Finally, what probably delighted me most were the desserts. First of all, look at how beautiful these look! I loved the colors, from the smoothies all the way on the left, to the fruit cups, yoghurts, mousse and pieces of cake, to the charcuterie and cheeses on the right. I didn’t have any of the latter, sticking to the sweets. I had the mango smoothie which was truly delicious, and I loved the chocolate mouse, which was rich and deep in flavor.

But that wasn’t all of it. To the right of the cold dessert options were also some pastries, including pain au chocolate and apple pie. I tried the pain au chocolate, which was tasty but nothing special. Unfortunately I was too full for the apple pie at this point and I didn’t want to srtuff myself, given that I’d still be served dinner on the flight.

With all this I had a glass of white wine, though I regretfully served myself this in a champagne glass (*gasp*). I fullyt intended to get champagne, so I took a champagne glass, but then didn’t want to open a new bottle (I couldn’t find an open one). In hindsight I should have just asked the lounge staff…

Anyway, there was ample chocie of drinks, with various sodas in fridges udner the main drink bar:

And then on top, all the way on the left were a selection of liquors, that I imagine would satisfy most lounge visitors…

Then there was a cooler with various white wines and champagnes. The reds had their spot to the left of the liquor, and weren’t placed in a cooler. The selection was predominantly French.

And finally there were machines that would allow a variety of hot drinks, includes various kinds of coffee and hot water to make tea. Tea bags were placed just to the right of the coffee machine. In that area was also a small water tank with orange-flavored water, which was nice.

Then for the upper floor I’ll just provide some quick images so you can see how it looks up there. What you might notice is that there’s quite a bit more food, including some items you may not recognize from the photos of the lower floor buffet. It’s simply an effect of there being less people on the upper floor, so there was more food left to take from, while the bottom floor so the most people pass by to grab something. The food and drink selection is all the same, though.

Following these series of photos and I had some fish, chicken and desserts, and sat down on the upper floor. While I sat there to eat, I realize dhow generally quiet it was. I was at the lounge from about 7pm to about 9:30, at which point I went to my gate. At no time at this (late?) hour was it ever particularly busy, such that the space become noisy or loud. Ultimately, it was a pleasant place to sit for the duration of my stay, and I greatly enjoyed the food and drinks.

Restrooms and showers

The restrooms and shower facilities are on the bottom floor, opposite from the staircase going to the second floor. You go into a small ante-room to find the men’s and women’s restrooms on one side, and then one shower suite on the left and right. Going into the men’s restroom, the design is fairly modern, and they were kept reasonably clean in the time that I was there. There’s wasn’t much in terms of premium amenities.

Then, turning to the shower suite outside the restrooms, you’ll recognize it by the sign on the door:

Interestingly, it seemed you could just go in and use it, if vacant. I didn’t see any reservation system, nor were the doors locked or protected with some kind of electronic lock. So, I was able to step in quickly and look. The suite is quite spacious, with a toilet, a nice walk-in shower and a sink and mirror. There were some towels and amenities neatly arranged on a little stool, so you should have everything provided to you for a comfortable shower before you flight.

Overall, these are some nice facilities with a modern design that were kept clean throughout my visit.

The Clarins Spa

The Air France lounge has a last facility that I think you all will likely enjoy. The Clarins Spa is all about facials, so unfortunately no massage. Note that I highly recommend booking your appointment the minute your’e checked in at the lounge, since appointments can be difficult to get. You can do this at an iPad that’s placed just to the right of the reception desk. Here you will be asked to select one of three treatments, each of which are facials that last for 20 minutes. Once you select the treatment and the time slot, you’ll be asked for your name and contact details. When you finalize your booking, you’ll receive an email with a confirmation.

When it was about 15 minutes to my appointment, I went to the waiting area. There is a bit of an ante-room before you get to the waiting room proper. Here there’s also some chairs and a low table, as well as some material about Clarins.

Through a little hallway is the actual waiting room, with a number of chairs and tables, as well as some reading material. It was quiet and pleasant here, a nice place to sit and wait for the treatment.

The treatment is in one of the rooms along a hallway between the ante and waiting rooms. Once it was my time, I was called in by the friendly attendant, who invited me to lie down. In reality the facial is a face massage using Clarins treatment products, which was a very nice experience. I left feeling refreshed in a way that prpeared me very nicely for the flight ahead.

Summary

Overall, I find the Air France lounge at JFK Terminal 1 to be a lovely facility. The design is spacious, with large, floor-to-ceiling windows and seating spread out over two floors. Although the views out of these windows are not the most interesting, I enjoyed relaxing and eating here while waiting for my flight. Air France’s design language and color palette offers a simple yet elegant aesthetic without going over the top. I appreciate this effortless elegance, which I think many readily associate with French design more generally.

It’s great that both floors have a full buffet, with identical food options so that visitors can spread over the two areas without having ti crowd a single buffet. The food itself was delightful and I particularly enjoyed the chicken main and the mango smoothie. Finally, the Clarins spa offers pleasant treatment that offer the perfect relaxing and refreshing experience right before a long-haul flight.

I enjoyed my time at the Air France lounge and would be happy to come back!