Business-class fliers on United Airlines will soon be able to relax in a fancy new Polaris Lounge at Denver International Airport (DEN).
Design work is underway on the new, exclusive lounge at DEN, Aaron McMillan, the managing director of hospitality programs at United, told TPG on Monday.
“We’re going to build a mezzanine on top of [the existing] mezzanine and expand the floor plate a little bit,” he said referring to a location at DEN near the end of Concourse A between gates A18 and A20. “We’ll have a two-story Polaris lounge there.”
United aims to open the new DEN Polaris Lounge by late 2028 or early 2029, added McMillan.
The news comes amid a club building spree by the airline. United opened a massive Washington, D.C.-inspired United Club in the new E Concourse at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) on Tuesday. The space is second in size only to the new club at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) that opened in October.
United is also building a new club at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) that is scheduled to open by the end of the year, and is in talks for new clubs at Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) in Fort Myers and Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC).
The Polaris Lounge is United’s premium airport space accessible only to fliers booked in same-day, long-haul business class or in business or first class on several partner airlines, including All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Lufthansa.
The spaces compete with American Airlines’ Flagship Lounges and Delta Air Lines’ Delta One Lounges.
United has six Polaris Lounges: Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), IAH, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), SFO and IAD.
DEN is United’s only mainland U.S. hub without a Polaris Lounge.
When United opened its first Polaris space at ORD in 2016, lounges were only planned at its main international gateways and not DEN. The Colorado hub boasted only one long-haul nonstop at the time: Tokyo’s Narita Airport (NRT), schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows.
Today, United flies five intercontinental routes from DEN: Frankfurt Airport (FRA), London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR), Munich Airport (MUC), Rome Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO) and NRT. It will add its sixth route, to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), next summer.
“Aside from the local departures we’ve grown out of Denver, there’s also a fairly significant number of local customers that are connecting over like Chicago, and Houston, and San Francisco that are traveling Polaris that can take advantage of the product,” said McMillan.
And while McMillan was mum on the look and feel of the new Polaris Lounge at DEN, he was confident in one thing: it will not have an outdoor patio.
All travelers at DEN have access to the public outdoor patios at the ends of concourses A, B and C.
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Source: thepointsguy.com
