I could not stop reading Zach Helfand’s New Yorker story on “The Airport-Lounge Wars” (paywalled; Apple News+), in which he dissects the lounge experience, the history of these liminal spaces, and the very nature of waiting:

Airport lounges are about who gets in and who does not. There are lounges with hot dogs on rollers, lounges with pedicurists, and lounges with personal butlers. Ease of admission varies accordingly. Most people at an airport don’t visit a lounge. If they did, it would kind of defeat the purpose.

And:

Kevin James, a history professor at the University of Guelph who has studied airport lounges, called their product offering “an enhanced experience of stasis”—waiting but better. Peter Greenberg, CBS News’ travel editor, who, fifty years ago, bought lifetime lounge passes with six airlines, said, “What they want people to say is ‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’ And that’s usually what they are—slightly better than nothing.” A lounge is the kind of place that puts fruit in your water. One better-than-nothing criterion to judge a lounge is its bathrooms. An Air France lounge in Paris has rest-room suites with padded leather walls and blown-glass chandeliers, like a jewel box for bowel movements.

Most of the lounges I’ve frequented are dreary places with mediocre food, but one of the primary reasons I visit them (other than complimentary alcohol) is for the restrooms—they’re almost always more spacious, more private, and much, much cleaner than the regular restrooms. I can do without the fruit in my water, though.

I also learned from the piece that the airport lounge was started by what I can only describe as an exceedingly eccentric fellow:

The airport lounge was created in 1939 by American Airlines’ C.E.O., C. R. Smith, as a way to build support for commercial aviation. Smith called his first lounge, at LaGuardia, the Admirals Club. (He referred to his planes as the Flagship Fleet.) Membership was private, free, and at the company’s discretion. A manual listed those eligible: generals, congressmen, governors, judges, members of the U.N. Secretariat, “persons listed in Who’s Who.” New “Admirals” were commissioned in faux naval ceremonies. Often, they’d get a writeup in the local paper. Smith would send personal letters about Admiral business. (“Dear Admiral: As you know, we are not permitted to extend membership in the Admiral’s Club to the ladies. . . .”) He’d sign off, “C. R. Smith, Fleet Admiral.”

One would-be patron was denied access to the Admirals Club and filed a “discrimination complaint […] seeking to open the clubs to the paying public.” It wasn’t appreciated:

One American Airlines executive asked, “If we let just anybody become an Admiral, why would anybody want to be an Admiral?”

A succinct and snooty mashup of “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member” and “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

American Airlines lost, the clubs were opened up, and now every airline and credit card company is trying to “out-fancy” its competitors with over-the-top amenities:

The Centurion Lounge at LaGuardia was nice, with refreshing lemon-cucumber water, but a little cramped. If this was once world-class, it is no longer. So, this summer, American Express rolled out a new buffet menu—crab frittata, cornflake-crusted French toast—created by four James Beard Award-winning chefs, including Kwame Onwuachi, the star chef of Tatiana. […]

The Chase Sapphire Lounge, next door, offers private lounges within the lounge, starting at twenty-two hundred dollars for three hours. Each is a suite that comes with a PlayStation, a shower, and bathrobes. Dana Pouwels, Chase’s head of airport lounges, showed me around. “Typically, when you arrive at the suite, you would have welcome caviar and champagne,” she said. The suite seemed unnecessary; the rest of the lounge was nice enough. There was an Art Deco bar, custom wallpaper, and carpentry imported from Germany. Everything was JPMorgan blue. Water taps were built into the wall. “We rotate this quarterly to maintain seasonality,” one of Pouwels’s deputies said. “This rotation includes a blackberry-sage spa water.”

There was also a photo booth, a faux fireplace, and a spa. “The Sapphire Reserve customer is an experience maximizer,” Pouwels said. I was booked for a facial.

I just want a clean bathroom, edible food, and a glass of Scotch.