Exclusive Reveal: Austin Airport’s Massive New Lounge Plans Include Outdoor Decks and Surprising New Operators – View from the Wing

The Austin airport has an upcoming presentation slated for this week on its lounge plans. They’re building four new lounge spaces, will relocate all of the airlines, and make room for credit card issuers and common use operators that join programs like Priority Pass.

Currently, the airport features:

• American Airlines Admirals Club
• United Club
• Delta Air Lines Sky Club
• Chase ‘Terrace’

American had announced plans for a new 15,000 square foot lounge near gate 14 three years ago. As I’ve reported, that location isn’t happening. There are several new spaces under construction at the airport that have been prioritized for lounges. This is the plan.

New American Airlines Admirals Club Coming To Austin In 2027

Austin is adding gates to the west end of the airport, which will allow them to take gates offline in order to built a connection to a new concourse that they are going to build. This ‘West Gate Expansion’ includes space for a lounge, and a lease has been signed to turn that into an Admirals Club.

It will be 11,575 square feet including an outdoor terrace. That will be around 50% more space than the current club. That’s smaller than the originally-planned doubling of space, but American has pulled back its flight expansion in the city, axing around two-thirds of its destinations and flying almost exclusively now to hubs.

The lounge will not open until 2027 (the new gate area isn’t projected to open until 2026). That’s six years after a new club was announced.

Additional New Lounge Spaces

The tunnel connecting the current main concourse and the new concourse – which will be built after the West Gate Expansion – will house a 30,000 square foot (!) airline lounge.

It’s projected to be opened in 2030 or 2031 (so clearly not in 2030) and will offer an outdoor terrace space as well. Since it will go to an airline, and American already has its much-smaller space, it will most likely be a new club for either United or Delta even though Delta’s current club is by far the best one at the airport, and only just opened in 2019.

The new concourse will offer a 28,000 square foot lounge, apparently sans outdoor terrace, and will go to an airline or to a third party lounge operator.

It is possible that Southwest could take one of the new lounge spaces as part of a premium plan, and they’re the largest operator at the airport. This seems unlikely, and the airport suggests current club spaces will be repurposed so the two newly built spaces designated for airlines seem like they’d replace current airline clubs.

Meanwhile, the “West Infill” project which had previously included discussion as the new location for an Admirals Club is now slated to become a bank’s lounge. Chase, American Express and Capital One would most likely be interested, and Chase is already in a subpar space in the airport. This space will be 20,000 square feet and open in 2026-2027 (so not 2026).

Just before the start of the pandemic, Austin almost got an Escape lounge (that would have been rebranded as a Centurion Studio).

Current American, United, And Delta Lounge Spaces Will Be Repurposed

After 2030, once airlines are all in their new lounge spaces, the airport will find new uses for the existing lounge spaces used by the 3 legacy airlines. The starting point is to assume that the spaces continue to be used as lounges by independent operators, or by banks, but this is far enough out that the spaces could be used for other purposes.

Here’s the current United Club, which is the smallest.

The Delta Sky Club is the largest and nicest of the three, with outdoor deck and substantive food offerings.

The Austin Admirals Club gets overrun especially before British Airways departures. But there’s no question that it has the best staff of any club in their system – probably of any U.S. airline lounge even.

Chase Is Losing Its “Terrace” In March

A year and a half ago Chase opened its Sapphire Terrace at the Austin airport. This took the public use outdoor courtyard upstairs at the east end of the concourse, beside the Delta Sky Club, and turned it into a private use space for Chase Sapphire Reserve and J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers (with no Priority Pass option).

It is a mostly-outdoor space that’s stylish, but subject to the vagaries of weather. The indoor space is cramped with little seating, but features beer and soft drinks as well as complimentary vended packaged food.

This was always intended as temporary. Use of the space will cease in March 2025, according to the presentation, and it will revert to public use.

Chase now has experience in the airport, and an airport relationship, so strikes me as a front-runner to take one of the spaces that becomes available in the coming years.

Here Are Where Lounges Will Be Located As Austin Airport Develops

Here’s a map of the airport, including the new West Gate Expansion space, West Infill space, and new concourse. It shows the location of lounge spaces in the airport into the future.

(1) is the West Gate Expansion area where the American Airlines Admirals Club will be located.(2) is the tunnel location which will go to an airline, with an outdoor deck – my guess is Delta since the airport is already certain this goes to an airline and United is smaller in Austin(3) is the new concourse club lounge space which is enormous and could go to United or to a common use operator.(4) is the West Infill space that’s going to go to a bank (though it goes through an RFP process, my guess is that Chase winds up first-in, since they’re already in the airport)(5) is the current United Club and current Admirals Club.(6) is where the current Delta Sky Club is located.

Interestingly, the original gate 14 space that American had planned to take for its lounge when they first announced in November 2021 is no longer slated to be used for lounge space in the airport’s vision.