The Air China Domestic Lounge provided the most Asian like food that we’d had on our international around the world trip. The royal red lounge offered spacious comfort before our domestic flight.

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This post is one chapter in our Around the World in Star Alliance First Class via China, Thailand and Spain. This trip was booked using Air Canada Aeroplan miles. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Review: Air China Business Domestic Lounge, Beijing, China

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Getting there:

Avoiding the stairs in the Beijing Subway (and saving my luggage), we took a taxi back to the airport. From the hotel, it cost 120 RMB ($19 USD). 

We arrived at the massive Beijing Capital Airport, considered to be the second busiest airport in the world. The sheer expanse of this structure was hard to describe. Despite my many travels, it had a wow factor from the sheer size of it when you walked in the doors. It seemed almost endless depending on which direction you were looking within the building. This was the International and Domestic Departure Drop off Zone. 

We checked in on the Blue Carpets courtesy of Star Alliance Gold Status and checked into our flight. Again, we were down gauged from a Beoing 777-300 to a Boeing 737-800. For some reason, the domestic air service check in for premium customers was, like in Shanghai, deserted. I guess everyone went to the train station instead. 

After security, we went to the Domestic Air China Business Lounge. This lounge, like Shanghai’s domestic lounge, was on an elevated concourse above retail shops. It had a bright feel to it, which is perfect. It was actually much larger than the Shanghai lounge.

Accessing the Lounge:

The access to the Air China Domestic Lounge was up a set of open escalators. Access today was provided courtesy of Aeroplan Elite Status with Star Alliance Gold, which provided courtesy access regardless of cabin of travel.

I was happy to see that I was among the Air Koyro travellers accessing this lounge.

Inside the Air China Lounge:

As it was an early morning flight, breakfast was being served. We were self connecting back to our reward ticket later that afternoon, so we had left ourselves 7 hours transit time in Shanghai.

The lounge itself had spacious seating. Aside from the odd reddish tone to everything, it was a fairly relaxing place to be. There was a lot of ambient light. I could only imagine the massive construction it took to build what was among the world’s largest airports.

The food offerings were very Asian. Brown hard boiled eggs, Chinese buns. Croissants were on offer but there was no jam to go with them. All the coffee was Nescafe from a brutish sounding machine. The internet access was through China Unicom and to gain access, you had to provide your passport number at one of several kiosks outside the lounge in the airport. I didn’t bother leaving the lounge in order to get a wifi code. Similar to the Shanghai domestic lounge there were no English newspapers or English magazines on offer. 

Overall:

The Air China Domestic Business Lounge was a reasonable place to stop prior to your trip. The best feature of the lounge was the ample seating and personal space. The low points included the food, which similar to our other Air China Lounge experience, was mostly to Asian tastes without any Western Options.

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