Sydney Airport’s busy terminal two (T2) is home to Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge. Now around a decade old, Simple Flying dropped by one afternoon recently to see if the lounge has lost any of its former spark and if COVID had altered lounge operations.
Access to Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge
You can’t miss the lounge entrance. Located just after the main security area in T2, you’ll see the stairs up to the well-signposted lounge.
Who gets access? Business class passengers, Velocity lounge members, and Velocity platinum and gold frequent flyers (in any class of travel) with same-day Virgin Australia travel. Platinum grade passengers can bring in three adult guests, and gold grade passengers can bring in one adult guest.
High-status frequent flyers with Virgin Australia’s partner airlines also make the cut. Those airlines include Delta, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, and Virgin Atlantic. Reciprocal agreements allow access for one additional guest.
In the entrance lobby, Virgin Australia staff behind perspex panels will scan your boarding pass. On the day of this writer’s visit, the sole staff member did not ask about or check the writer’s COVID status.
Impressions of the Virgin Australia Sydney lounge
This lounge opened early last decade when Virgin Australia transitioned from a low-cost carrier into a full-service airline. At the time, Virgin Australia opened a swag of lounge that this writer always thought looked like a plastic surgeon’s waiting room – lots of clinical white, splashes of bold reds and purples, and sharp-looking furniture and fittings that were frequently more form over function.
Enhancements over recent years have softened that look, but that clinical white DNA is still there. These days, Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge is a comfortable mid-level lounge that does its job. However, if MoVida had reopened downstairs, this writer might prefer to head there.
Overview of lounge amenities
All guests enter via the main entrance, with the premium kerbside express entry to the lounge still closed. Inside, the first thing that grabs you is the striking ceiling – a series of geometric shapes that significantly elevates what would otherwise be a relatively bland space.
But you cannot wait for your flight on the ceiling. The lounge is broken into distinct zones using stairs and a series of vaguely opaque panels this writer quite likes but many do not.
Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge covers two levels, with the upper level offering extra seating and bar facilities during peak times. There is little need for the overflow area these days, and generally, lounge users have access to the main downstairs level. Half of the main floor lounge was also roped off on this visit.
One of the drawbacks of the downstairs area is that while there is ample natural light, there are no apron views. Most of the seating, which largely comprises pairs of chairs set around a small table, is clustered towards the front and the rear of the lounge.
Midway through the lounge on both sides of the central service block are the work zones – a series of communal workbenches with stools, power points, and charging ports. The work zones do the job but don’t allow for much privacy and hark back to the previously discussed all-white color palette.
Functional rather than fantastic
Away from the heavily trafficked areas near the entrance and food counters, slightly psychedelic carpet with swirls of grey, black and purple dominate and helps soften the lounge’s otherwise somewhat functional feel.
While the chairs are comfortable, the whole look is hardly luxurious. The metal bases of chairs and tables look cheap, even if they are not. Near the windows, the vaulted ceilings with their exposed steel beams and cables painted white also look like a cut-price design option.
Employees patrol the lounge, clearing tables and sweeping up mess. But the widespread problem of staff shortages are clearly impacting. Large areas of the lounge needed cleaning. However, that’s life and not the fault of the staff on the day who were working hard.
WiFi is available in the lounge. The current password is displayed around the lounge, or alternatively, guests can ask a lounge employee. A test during this visit showed downloads speeds of 3.7 Mbsp and upload speeds of 4.7 Mbsp.
Food & drink service in Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge
Like the recently reviewed Virgin Australia Melbourne lounge, self-service of food and drinks is on hold in the Sydney lounge. Guests will see the staffed food and drink counters as they enter the lounge.
Up the left end are two big commercial coffee machines. Baristas will make your preferred caffeine hit using Grinders coffee. A Madam Flavour tea menu is on offer, and younger flyers will enjoy the hot chocolates, which sometimes come with marshmallows.
The bar opens at midday, with the usual Virgin Australia 2.0 staples on offer. The fridge stocks Pure Blonde, Great Northern, and Four pines beers along with Sommersby ciders. The bar staff poured Founders Block chardonnay and the now ubiquitous Tatachilla wines, including a sparkling brut, sauvignon blanc, and cabernet shiraz. Soft drinks, juices, and sparkling water was also available, as were bowls of Red Rock chips.
At the other end of the counters, another staff member was happy to hand over already plated cold items, including a pesto chicken salad with avocado )that was heavy on the baby spinach leaves and light on chicken and avocado), wild rice, beetroot, and walnut salad, chimichurri beef and lettuce wraps, and a cheese platter.
Also on offer was a tasty spicy Thai chicken soup with bread rolls. Missing were more substantive hot food offerings. Virgin Australia relaunched its lounge food offering last year. The menu reads well,l and the food looks pretty. Whether it’s really an improvement on the previous offering is another matter.
Good, clean bathrooms
The bathrooms are located near the entrance to the lounge. After you enter, instead of veering left into the lounge proper, turn right towards the signposted bathrooms. This writer has always found Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge bathrooms well maintained and kept clean. This visit was no exception.
In contrast to the relative sterility of the lounge, the bathrooms are all dark and moody, with different types of black tiles providing a startling counterpoint to the lounge proper.
At the hand basins is good quality Hunter handwash, paper toweling, and dryers. The lounge also usually has shower facilities and shower packs. However, like the premium entry, the showers are temporarily closed.
Lounge staff call each flight, and there are plenty of boards displaying flight information. Guests exit the lounge via an escalator which drops onto you the departures concourse near the food court. It’s a busy spot, and it’s always a good move to double-check your departure gate here and that you are heading in the right direction.
The Virgin Australia Sydney lounge is definitely showing its age. That said, the airline is gradually refreshing its lounges, and no doubt, Sydney is in the queue. In the meantime, the lounge is a comfortable enough place to wait for a flight. As always, the staff remain one of the strong points of the lounge.
