Anyone else noticed the trend towards alliance lounges?

Anyone else noticed the trend towards alliance lounges? Just curious if there is anyone in the AusBT universe with a view on the trend of lounges appearing to move, (allbeit in a minor way,) to SkyTeam and Star Alliance branded lounges at major ports. Do you think it will continue or grow or stay where it's at? I suppose examples like the OneWorld lounge at LAX are good as it's shared resources amoung QF, AA, BA and CX gor us QC members.

It's cheaper to share a lounge than have one dedicated to a particular airline, so I think the trend will continue apace. Overcrowding becomes an issue with so many carriers in one space.

In ports where partner airlines each have only a small number of flights each day, teaming up to offer one great lounge is a much better approach than each airline running its own, smaller and less-impressive lounge, so it's a trend we hope to see continue.

For the traveller, it really doesn't matter what the name says on the door – what matters is what's offered on the inside.

Mostly. One "great" lounge isn't so great when a small number of flights all operate close together. That can and does overcrowd the lounge. It'll happen more frequently as the alliances sign on new members. Consider a port such as Queenstown, where until now about 90% of NZ trans-Tasman flights have departed in an afternoon window of 150mins. Now consider all the *A travellers entitled to be in the NZ lounge. It's been impossible for local Koru and Golds to find a seat. That's the problem that'll increasingly come up.

BTW: the narrow window has occurred in part because Queenstown couldn't do night flights. 5.30pm closure in winter. That changes from June, although it's far from clear if the airlines will find it in their interest to take up the opportunity. If they don't the lounge scrum will go on.

I think alliance lounges can be great – both the Star and Oneworld business class lounges at LAX are solid examples - but they're not always an ideal solution, even from the airline/alliance perspective.

Look at London Heathrow T2 for instance: this is a dedicated Star Alliance terminal so you'd think it would be in line for a mega-lounge, at least at the main terminal with a smaller offshoot at the satellite terminal. But nope, there are seperate lounges for Lufthansa, United Airlines, Air Canada and Singapore Airlines – and two of those airlines (United & Air Canada) also operate their own first class lounges too.

So it's not a given that we'll see more of these across the board. In some airports, indeed so, but it needs the airlines to co-operate (as was the case with QF. BA and CX at LAX).