The 10 Percent Is in a Fit of Rage Over Airport Lounges

[Celerity]

A clueless New York Times op-ed spotlights the haute bourgeoisie’s disappointed status-seeking—and its odd political commitments.

https://newrepublic.com/article/199158/ten-percent-rage-airport-lounges

https://archive.ph/uo1ew


A view inside Capital One’s flagship lounge at JFK Airport in New York City

On August 3, The New York Times published a cringingly bad op-ed by former BuzzFeed writer David Mack complaining that airport lounges are letting in too much of the rabble these days. “In some” lounges, Mack groused, “with their cubed cheese and powdered eggs, I’ve felt less like [James] Bond and more like Melissa McCarthy’s frumpy cat lady in the 2015 action comedy Spy.”

Fetch my smelling salts! As someone who’s lived nearly seven decades without once setting foot in an airport lounge—not because I’m poor but because they’re a waste of money—I was appalled by Mack’s complaint. I was also puzzled by Mack’s logical inconsistency because immediately after crying a river that airport lounges don’t pamper customers enough, Mack bitched that they pamper customers too much with saunas, Jacuzzis, and Alain Ducasse meals. Oh well, I thought. It’s August, when editors grow desperate for copy. As I’ve noted previously, magazine writers have been using the phrase “silly season” to describe high summer since at least 1861.

To my surprise, however, Mack’s bad op-ed had legs—so much so that it generated some interesting discourse about “elite overproduction.” Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg (who holds the very 2025 job title “intelligence editor”) wrote that “the declining pleasure of the airport lounge” is “a metaphor for the declining prospects of the upper middle class … [as] certain societies grow so rich and successful that they produce too many people of premium education for the number of premium jobs—or premium experiences—that the economy can actually support.” One result, apparently, is a luxury industry that struggles to calibrate precisely how exclusionary its products and services—such as airport lounges—need to be.

Lichtenberg posted a few days before Mack did, but I caught up with his piece after Mack’s hissy fit prompted me to google “airport lounges.” On finishing the Fortune piece, I contacted my overproduction guru, Dan Alpert, author of the excellent 2013 book The Age of Oversupply. In Alpert’s view, our economic troubles derive from a global oversupply of both labor and capital. The former depresses living standards for workers; the latter feeds financialization and financial speculation because too much money is chasing too little available capital investment.

snip

[leftstreet]

1. Sick but also fascinating

DURec

Also, the book The Age of Oversupply was worth a read

[Retrograde]

2. For us, they were a cost-effective tradeoff

We almost always take public transportation to the airport, and the club is a quiet place to grab breakfast and rant about BART’s latest screwup. Back when I was flying monthly they were also the best place to modify travel plans after the inevitable cancellations and delays. For others, they may not be worth the expense: it depends on what a person’s priorities and resources are.

[Deep State Witch]

3. We Got To Visit One in Dulles and in Rome

We flew business class to Rome and back last September, because we won the lottery for open seats. So, we got to hang out in the lounges. We basically consumed all of the free food and drinks that we could before our flight was called for boarding. The one in Rome was nicer than the one at Dulles, but much more crowded. Still, free brekkie and drinks! John and I kept joking about being the Beverly Hillbillies.

[GenThePerservering]

4. They're also the ones gurning at we peasants

as we tramp through First Class to get to our seats in Cattle Class. The way some of them look I feel like I should be carrying a chicken coup and leading a donkey.

[mopinko]

5. afaik, all u need to do it have the airline's credit card.

unless they’re talking about some secret lounge that i dont know about.

[Initech]

6. Yeah excuse me while I go find the world's smallest violin.

[Skittles]

7. first world issues

snobs

[hatrack]

8. Too bad David Brooks couldn't pile on and complain about the price of cocktails at Newark!

A wonderful example of profound triviality.

[Initech]

9. Complaining about conditions in an airport lounge is the most first world problem of first world problems.

Most of us are lucky if we even get a vacation.