Priority Pass Gem: Air France Lounge JFK New York Terminal 1 Review

Worth Coming to Airport Early For: YES.

Better Than The Terminal? YES (by a long shot).

For the first stop on my trip to the Cayman Islands, I spent an hour pre-flight at Air France’s Satellite Lounge in Terminal 1 at JFK. This outstation lounge is actually quite nice, and one of the nicer lounges in the US you can gain access to via Priority Pass.

In this post:

1. Arrival to JFK Terminal 1
2. How to Get In
3. The Lounge
4. Food
5. Conclusion

Arrival to JFK Terminal 1

JFK Terminal 1 is home to majority of international carriers that have routes to JFK. The Cayman Airways flight is actually one of the first to leave the terminal, since many of the Asia / Middle East / Europe flights leave later in the day.

Terminal 1 isn’t that nice (hence the building of the new terminal one), but it was completely empty ahead of my flight since it was one of the first departures of the day.

The lounge is right next to gate 1 at JFK, which was conveniently the gate for my Cayman Airways flight.

How to Get In

In terms of entrance policy, Air France Business Class or La Premiere customers get first dibs. However, this lounge is accessible via priority pass, which is how I entered before my flight.

Using priority pass is hit or miss here; the lounge was pretty empty at 8am, so I was let in. However, I’ve tried to enter here in the afternoon before earlier this year for a different flight and was rejected, so YMMV. But the less busy, the better in general.

If you get rejected in the morning, you probably won’t have many other options. Later in the day though, JFK Terminal 1 is priority pass access galore, although most of them aren’t too great. My favorite other than Air France is the Primeclass Lounge (emphasis on terminal 1 Primeclass Lounge, the one in terminal 4 should not be allowed to be classified as a “lounge”). Lufthansa ain’t too bad either but is starting to show its age.

The current hours per priority pass website for the Air France lounge at JFK are 7AM to midnight, but with restricted access from 2pm-9pm (Air France departure banks).

The Lounge

The Lounge is two floors, although in the morning the second (top) floor was blocked off, which I assume they only open up once Air France flights start opening up later in the day.

The lounge gives Connecticut hedge fund office from Billions vibes, which is … nice? The lower floor primarily has views facing away from the terminal towards JFK’s roadways, which isn’t too interesting. There’s lots of natural light though, which is a plus.

Food

Now onto the most important part – the food. The lower floor is wrapped around the buffet, which on one wall is food, the other, drinks.

I was actually quite surprised by the food spread in the morning. I would have assumed the Air France would have put out water bottles, pop tarts, and goldfish for priority pass passengers and only break out real catering for their own flights, but it was actually pretty great.

And now on to the hot food spread:

You can even have a 8am quinoa salad if you want:

The drinks selection was nice as well, with wine already out in the morning as well as a decent coffee machine.

And of course, wouldn’t be a complete Air France Lounge visit without:

One downside of this lounge is the bathrooms are kind of dingy, and give off middle school bathroom vibes.

There is a shower here though, for those that want to use one.

Conclusion

Before long, it was time to head off to my flight to Grand Cayman. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the food spread was at the Air France Lounge at JFK was at 8am during their non-peak times, and would definitely come back again if passing through terminal 1 again.

Terminal 1 pretty meh itself, so this lounge is a great refuge out of that, and even better it’s free with priority pass.