British Airways’s route network takes it through one of London’s two airports; its primary base at London Heathrow and it’s secondary base at London Gatwick. London Heathrow’s Terminal Five represents the flagship of it’s lounge network. British Airways offers its primary business class lounges, it’s first class lounges and it’s exclusive Concorde Room First Class Lounge. As connecting passengers like we were, we’d stop in to visit the British Airways Galleries South Lounge at London Heathrow airport.

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This post is one chapter on a trip to the South of France and Cinque Terre, Italy. This trip was enhanced through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. For information on how this trip was booked, please see our introduction. For parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Review: British Airways Galleries South Lounge – London Heathrow Terminal 5, United Kingdom

The British Airways Galleries Lounge forms part of the primary lounge network for the British Airways Lounges at London Heathrow Terminal Five. If you’re very lucky, you’ll have access to the British Airways Concorde Room – London Heathrow that we’d visited previously.

Locating the British Airways Galleries Lounge:

We arrived into London Heathrow Terminal Five on a British Airways Club Suite Business Class Vancouver – London flight. Since we were lucky enough to arrive into Heathrow in Terminal Five, it was a short train ride back to the main terminal. We had a security screening, then we were up to the main concourse level.

The British Airways Galleries Lounge South – London Heathrow Terminal Five is located on the immediate right hand side of the aircraft terminal. From the main concourse level, its a medium length walk and wander through retail and duty free heaven, towards the lounge escalators.

After heading up a level, you’ll find yourself in a corridor between the British Airways Concorde Room – London Heathrow and the British Airways First Class Lounge. If you take a further right turn, you’ll pass to a second set of escalators taking you up to the top floor for the British Airways South Galleries Lounge – London Heathrow.

As you pass by the entry ways to the two lounges, there is a lounge occupancy chart that allows you to take a look to see how busy the various lounges are.

Passing by the entrance to the British Airways Concorde Room, visitors to the British Airways Galleries Lounge continue towards the right, and up the second set of escalators up to the top level.

Arriving to the top level, you’ll find the charmed black horse that occupies the entrance of many British Airways lounges. It over looks a covered roof area that features an British Airbus 380 model.

Rounding the corner, you’ll find a bank of lounge reception desks ready to scan you in.

How to Access the British Airways Galleries Lounge:

It’s fairly straight forward to access the British Airways Galleries Lounge.

Lounge access is available to:

• British Airways customers flying on a scheduled flight in Club or First
• Silver and Gold Executive Club Members on scheduled flights operated by British Airways or one of our oneworld® partners
• Emerald and Sapphire level Members of any oneworld airline frequent flyer programme on a scheduled flight operated by British Airways or one of our oneworld partners
• As a Sapphire or Emerald member you are welcome to invite one single guest per each departure flight to join you in the lounge. (Guest must be travelling on British Airways or one of our oneworld partners).
• All lounge access is subject to capacity restrictions.

If you’re a premium credit card holder and looking for access, you’ll have to visit the Plaza Premium Lounge London Heathrow Terminal 5 as the British Airways Lounge network doesn’t partner with Priority Pass or many credit cards that come with access.

Inside the British Airways Galleries South Lounge:

There are two British Airways Galleries Lounges, split into a “South” and a “North” version. While there isn’t one that is prominently featured over another, the Galleries South Lounge tends to get most of the attention as a result of being situated next to the other British Airways Lounges, such as the British Airways Concorde Room and the British Airways First Class Lounge.

The British Airways Galleries South Lounge is divided into two separate areas. The left hand side of the lounge is situated amongst most of the windows and natural light, whereas the right hand side of the lounge offers lounge seating that is oriented more towards into the terminal.

We headed over and found a seat on the left hand side of the lounge. On our mid afternoon visit, the British Airways Galleries South Lounge was absolutely packed. We had some challenges actually locating a seat. We ended up grabbing one that was currently being vacated by departing guests.

The lounge seating in the British Airways Galleries Lounge consisted of lounge chairs oriented in a four persons configuration. While this was well designed, it often led to a lot of people having bags placed on seats, making it a little challenging to find seating when the lounge was near capacity.

Each end of the lounge featured the traditional British Airways Galleries bar. The bar was stocked with self service wines for pour, along with some regional bottled beer.

Towards the centre of the lounge, the lounge offered a seating area near the food service zone. Passing through to the right hand side of the lounge, I passed through the food and buffet area. I’ll talk more about the food that was available shortly. The food service space was decorated with wine bottles, similar to that you’d find in a casual dining restaurant or lounge.

The food service area in the lounge featured a promotional display from Bottega sparkling wine. This was a creative product placement on the part of the lounge. Since they were featuring a sparkling wine, British Airways didn’t need to feature a champagne in the lounge.

Passing over to the quieter right hand side of the lounge, the British Airways Galleries South Lounge offered additional lounge seating. While the area was substantially darker (as a result of not having outwards facing windows), the lounge was equally as packed with a challenge of finding a seat still more present.

Towards the very back of the lounge, lounge seating opened up. Several communal couch style benches were available, making this a quieter place to set up away from all the crowds.

The London Heathrow airport authority doesn’t post flight gates until about one hour before the flight. This seems to be a very disorganized way to run an airport, but it seems to work for them. The late announcements of the flight gates mean that the lonuge tends to have a lot of travellers crowded around the screens.

The seating at the British Airways Galleries Lounge was diverse and substantial. Despite this, it was really crowded when it came time to our visit, making locating a seat sometimes of a challenge.

Food and Beverage:

One of the British Airways Galleries Lounges greatest strength’s is the amount of food that’s on offer to travellers. During our visit in the late afternoon that was between the usual meal times, the lounge had a substantial amount of food available for consumption.

For an afternoon snack, the British Airways Galleries Lounge was offering mashed potatoes. mushy peas, yorkshire puddings and freshly made ceasar salads.

As if that light meal wasn’t enough, there were also options for warm pasta, chili and and various cold salads. These also included a salty and savory section that included nacho crisps, jalapeños and other sauces.

The amount of food available in the lounge was much more than I would have expected for an international business class departures lounge. While they were clearly focused on quantity, the taste of the food that I enjoyed was actually pretty good as well.

You won’t go hungry while you’re visiting this lounge. I would end up enjoying that light steak pie with a yorkshire pudding with gravy, mashed potatoes and mushy peas. It was a particularly filling snack that replenished me more than I would have expected from a business lounge.

In terms of beverages, the lounge offered the usual food and beverage items. Particularly of interest, is the gin and tonic bar located in the lounge. The British Airways Galleries Lounge offered a self service gin and tonic bar that offered a whole variety of Gordon and Tanqueray Gins.

MrsWT73 enjoyed the CIROC Vodka that was available throughout the lounge; making it the perfect cocktail for a layover.

The lounge also featured some Union Hand Roasted Coffee stations throughout the lounge. While Union Hand Roasted Coffee is popular through the United Kingdom, South American and Africa, it hasn’t branched out to mainstream acceptance in North America.

After killing off a three hour connection, we headed off on our connecting British Airways Club Europe London Heathrow – Nice flight.

My Thoughts on the British Airways Galleries Lounge:

The British Airways Galleries Lounge offered everything that you’d expect from a solid international business lounge.

The British Airways Galleries Lounge’s best feature was the quality and quantity of food that was available to its visitors. The lounge exceeded all expectations in this regard.

The main disadvantage of the lounge was the busy nature of the place, making it a little difficult to easily find a seat.

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If you’ve visited London Heathrow, do you have a favorite British Airways Galleries Lounge ?

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