I always have opinions about BA's Galleries South lounge at London Heathrow's Terminal 5, but I'd never actually ventured to the Galleries North lounge. Time to change that!
I decided to head up to the northern lounge in T5 for a bit of a change of scene while I waited for my flight to Stockholm to connect through to Doha and Bangkok. Interestingly, the northern lounge isn't at all a carbon copy of the southern lounge; obviously there are similarities in terms of colours, fabrics, (some) lighting, branding and the like, but space-wise and ambience-wise I think it's quite different.
That being said, I'm not sure I like it very much. Why? Well. The bulk of it looks a bit like the canteen of a newly-built hospital, that's why. And the lighting is either harsh or dingy.
Now, I know I am quite critical of airport lounges, but for good reason. Some of them are just really weird, like the concept of what the airline is trying to convey isn't tailored to suit the space available, and more like it's simply shoe-horned in without a huge amount of consideration as to what the overall aesthetic will then be like in reality. And this isn't just BA's lounges in T5, this is lounges all over the place. Even a number of the design choices in Qatar Airways' Al Mourjan lounge in Doha Hamad International irked me.
Anyway, back to BA and the Galleries North lounge.
I was warmly greeted by the member of BA ground staff managing entrance to the lounge. I showed her my boarding pass and proceeded inside and holy crap that lighting. It was stark and so bright. I think this brightness was enhanced by the white walls and light coloured flooring, too, but wow... I should have put some sunglasses on.
The immediate area you enter is a bit strange. There's a bit of a void, with not much in it but a wine bar built into the left wall and some magazines and newspapers (BA still insist on stocking the Daily Mail which is frankly an unforgivable offence) are located on the right.
Directly ahead of you is what I will now refer to as "the canteen". The seating here is for the food offerings which are to your right at this point. The set up here is anything but luxurious or relaxing; it's exactly like a hospital canteen; it's just a space filled with tables and chairs. Nothing more, nothing less. The lighting in here is strange too. It's not so bright as the first space, as the lighting here is muted somewhat by a whole serious of utterly enormous lampshades. So enormous in fact that they look wholly out of place and slightly comical. Like I said before, I don't think the physical space is considered in the design of these places, as these lampshades are literally five feet tall.
I do hope the New Year Resolutions from BA regarding Terminal 5's lounge refreshes go simply beyond a face lift. The North and South lounges in the A Gates need a serious rethink in terms of the actual space they occupy - but that's a different blog post altogether as I have opinions about that, too... and there are some choice tid-bits on the rumour mill about this too!
As mentioned, this canteen area is full of tables and chairs, and was quite busy. There were also a number of empty tables but they were home to dirty crockery, glasses and leftover food. There weren't enough people clearing up the mess customers had left behind which is frustrating, and very BA. I found a clean, empty table to sit at, but the chair (though quite attractive) felt very rickety, as though it would fall apart if I sat on it. I decided to sit elsewhere than unwittingly destroy the furniture. I took myself on a wander of the lounge to get my bearings.
I took a look out at the 'balcony' area but again found this to be a fairly strange location. It was poorly lit, and on a grey day like it was, it seemed quite dark, especially compared to how bright the canteen was; I had to artificially lighten the photos below to be able to make them worth posting. The only artifical lighting was spill-over from the canteen and a few oversized floor lamps that didn't actually shed much light. There were a few large plants, again in oversized pots. I felt like I was in Gulliver's Travels. That being said, the furniture out here was pretty nice and comfortable, and looked quite new.
I wandered back through the canteen, inspecting some of the food. Although the variety isn't massive, BA's food in its business lounges is always consistently decent. I didn't grab a bite to eat as I would be getting a lunch on my flight to Stockholm, but I did take some photos.
The lounging area wasn't quite as busy as the canteen, with a number of seats available. These were more informal than those out on the balcony area, and were on the whole, in good condition (unlike the Galleries South lounge where the furniture I think is quite tatty). There are two self-serve bars in this area too, stocked with the usual suspects in the usual manner. Again, the light fittings here were jarring, with some horribly 90's black lampshades with strange plastic dangly bits, like a weird chandelier. The piece de resistance, in an ironic way, is the wavy glass thing above the wine bar. It. Is. Hideous. It's the kind of thing you'd find on a cruise liner atrium that hasn't been retrofitted since the 90's. Going back to BA's New Year's Resolutions, they simply must get rid of it.
I perched myself on a metal stool overlooking the very end of the runway, and got a nice view of some larger aircraft taking off and disappearing into the low cloud cover. I sipped a G&T (as is tradition) before heading for a quick bathroom stop en route to my gate.
The toilets in the Galleries North lounge were on the whole in a better state of cleanliness than I usually find the Galleries South lounge toilets, although they also look like they were transplanted from a hospital with the bare minimum of amenities available.
BA really, really need to make good on their New Year's Resolution to refresh all the lounges in T5... and build another at C Gates to relieve some of the pressure on those in the A Gates. While serviceable with enough formal and informal seating, and a decent (and thankfully consistent) food and drinks offering, there's just nothing stand out about the aesthetic of any of the lounges in this terminal, other than the stand out choices of very questionable light fittings. Still, at least we don't have to endure the horse lamps, arguably BA's most hideous of interior design choices.