The first-ever Delta One Lounge, just for business class passengers, just opened in New York City (JFK) on Wednesday. The second and third locations in Los Angeles (LAX) and Boston (BOS) are expected to open by year's end. You can already add a fourth one to the list.
A Delta spokesperson confirmed Wednesday they're on track to open a second Sky Club lounge at their Seattle (SEA) hub in December 2024. And sometime in 2025, the airline will also open a dedicated Delta One Lounge in Seattle.
The airline already has an excellent (and quite massive) Seattle Sky Club, and a second lounge has been in the works for years. But the airline has been also ramping up international flights in and out of the Puget Sound, including nonstop flights to Taipei (TPE) that began earlier this month.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian first let slip the plans for a business class lounge in an interview with CNBC, saying: “We’re opening up a new one also in Seattle, probably at the start of next year.”
The exact timing for that fourth Delta One Lounge is up in the air – a spokesperson only said it will “open in 2025.” Delta isn't sharing any details just yet on what travelers will find inside … or even where in the airport it'll be.
The airline's ordinary lounge in the works for Seattle – the one that paying Sky Club members and travelers with cards like *amex platinum* or the *delta reserve card* can get into – is part of a 52,000-square-foot expansion at the end of the airport's A Concourse. That massive expanse isn't all for Delta, though: It'll also be home to another new lounge from The Club accessible with a Priority Pass lounge membership as well as leasable offices.
Check out our full review of the current Seattle Delta Sky Club and see why it's one of our favorites!
We're guessing that the Seattle Delta One will be an offshoot of that new location. That's the same approach that the airline is taking for its business class lounges in Boston and Los Angeles.
Wherever it winds up, Delta is clearly dead set on building out these business class lounges as fast as possible: In less than a year, there could be four and counting. And there are two big reasons for that:
- Giving their high-paying customers an exclusive lounge just like American and United have for years is long overdue. Sending business class passengers to the same (often overcrowded) doesn't quite fit with Delta's “premium airline” brand.
- As those Delta One Lounges open, it should relieve pressure on otherwise packed Delta Sky Clubs
“As we open this lounge, it takes a lot of that pressure off of our pre-existing club at JFK … which is a nice lounge, but when it’s crowded, it’s not so nice. So we’ll actually get two lounges for one as we open this,” Bastian told CNBC. “This is just going to continue to get better.”
With Seattle next on the list, it begs the question: Why are Delta's coastal hubs getting all the love – not Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Detroit (DTW), or even its Atlanta (ATL) headquarters, where more than 200 long-haul flights take off every week in the summer?
In a word: Competition.
Delta has a virtual stranglehold on long-haul travelers flying in and out of Detroit, Minneapolis, and Atlanta, so giving those customers an extra special lounge just isn't a priority. What are they going to do … fly another airline?
But in competitive markets along the coasts, it can give Delta an even greater edge over other carriers. Seattle is the logical next step: It's still struggling to challenge Alaska Airline's dominance in the Pacific Northwest. And at a time when Alaska could be eyeing long-haul international flights with its Hawaiian Airlines merger, making inroads now with those flyers heading abroad is a savvy move.
Bottom Line
Big things are in the works for Delta flyers in Seattle: The airport won't just get a second Sky Club lounge but an exclusive Delta One Lounge for business class flyers, too.