When I finally reached Terminal 8 at JFK and got through security, I made a beeline for the Greenwich Lounge. Terminal 8 is exclusively for American Airlines, British Airways and some of their OneWorld partners including Qatar and Iberia. There are three lounges here for passengers (four if you count the domestic Admirals Club). Essentially, the Greenwich Lounge is for business class passengers, the Soho Lounge is for One World Emerald and other status holders and the Chelsea Lounge is for First Class passengers. There are a few other caveats, but this is the basic breakdown of who can enter which lounge.

My Flagship Business ticket gave me access to the Greenwich Lounge, which used to be the AA Flagship Lounge until all the lounges were rebranded when British Airways moved into T8 last year. It’s clever to use New York and London neighborhoods as the names, but it makes it very confusing for passengers who don’t follow travel news. I saw a few people get redirected to other lounges by the check-in staff. There are plenty of signs up that show which tickets or status give access to which lounges, but never underestimate the ignorance of the traveling public for such things.

The lounge is set up with a few different areas. There’s a main seating area that is huge (and crowded) with showers and bathrooms at the far end and a buffet and self-serve drinks area on the side. There are several shower suites plus plenty of bathrooms so there was not a wait for either when I was there despite the crowds.

Further on into the lounge, there’s the Tasting Room, offering Brooklyn Brewery beers on tap and some tables and booths where you can order a few bar snacks and drinks. Then at the very back there’s the Bridge Bar, which when I arrived around 6pm, was blessedly empty. I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered some food and a drink from the bartender.

I sat at the bar for an hour or so and made some calls while I enjoyed my snacks. I went over to the main area and found a seat to grab something a bit more substantial to eat as I planned to skip dinner and try and sleep on the flight.

The lounge remained solidly busy throughout my time there. It’s not surprising as there are many flights to London throughout the evening on BA and AA plus flights to other European destinations on AA and the daily flights on Iberia and Qatar. Most of these aircraft have large business class sections so it makes sense that the lounge would be busy from late afternoon through late evening.

Overall, I found the lounge to be perfectly functional for a business class lounge. The food selection was decent, although the main buffet was a bit less varied than the AA Flagship Lounge in Chicago or Miami. That was somewhat offset by having the bar menu available. I will add that it appeared that the items on the bar menu were available on the buffet so it was just a case of plating and arranging the same food.

Before I left the lounge, I asked one of the agents to print me a British Airways boarding pass for my connecting flight from London to Manchester. I assumed that I would need something other than an electronic boarding pass to connect between terminals at Heathrow and I did not want to waste any time there.

I headed the short distance to my gate for the transatlantic hop. Of course, boarding was delayed as the aircraft was still being cleaned.

Up Next: American Airlines 777-300 JFK-LHR Flagship Business Review

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