Dive into Delta’s newest Sky Club

Last week, Delta opened a new Sky Club lounge at its growing Seattle hub. And what a club it is. We had a chance to preview it before it opened last Friday and we were impressed.

This new club is located in the main terminal between Concourses A and B, near gate A1. It’s the second Sky Club at SEA, complementing the existing lounge in the South Satellite terminal near gates S9 and S10. But this new lounge is far larger, newer and nicer — and definitely worth going out of your way to visit if you have enough time, even if you are flying out of the satellite terminal.

 

The new Seattle Sky Club is one of the largest in the Delta network at over 21,000 square feet and with enough space to seat over 400 visitors. (Compare that to the new Atlanta Sky Club with 25,000 square feet and room for 500.)  The design is modern and sleek, quite similar to the design of the also-new Delta lounge at SFO. It felt more like something you’d experience at a BA lounge at Heathrow or maybe a Cathay lounge in Hong Kong in terms of it being large, light and airy, and packed with a lot of amenities. Kudos to Delta for really upping its game here.

Speaking of amenities, here are the highlights: Comfortable seating and power ports galore. You have a choice of long, partitioned benches; individual club chairs; sleek modern curved benches that feel like they belong in the mod, vintage TWA terminal at JFK; dining table/chairs; connected seats with high walls for privacy; quad-seat cubes facing away from each other; desk workstations; private pods with work lighting and swivel table/desk; and many other varieties of club chairs. There is truly a comfortable seat for everyone in this lounge. And all seating had power outlets integrated or adjacent to the seat. Even the dining section had clever power-port “towers” so you can charge up while enjoying the food (more on that below).

 

A gorgeous two-story space with lots of natural light and great views of the tarmac and Mount Rainier off in the distance (or so we’re told — it was cloudy on the day we were there). Delta has incorporated local design elements throughout such as a glass wave design in room partitions, natural wood, and colors that evoke the Pacific Northwest. There’s also a beautiful mosaic-style mural of the famous Pike’s Place market sign made by the same artist who did the similar Golden Gate bridge mosaic in the SFO Skyclub. See our review of the SFO Sky Club! This will be a very comfortable place to kill time or get work done at SEA.

Six private shower rooms with Malin+Goetz toiletries. There are three “standard” size rooms and three larger ones that we’re told can accommodate families if you are traveling with kids; but even the smaller rooms were large and impressive. The room has a private toilet, sink, and of course, shower area. The design is very high end and just feels luxurious. Well done, Delta.

Delta’s first foray into a spa integrated into a Sky Club. It’s run by Asanda and offers chair massages and relaxation treatments, all for a fee. I tried a 10-minute sample chair massage and it was great (normal pricing is 20 minutes for $50 or 45 minutes for $100). I also tried samples of two of the relaxation treatments where you lie in a zero-gravity chair, but honestly, didn’t care for either of them. The first is called Nap26 and you basically listen to white noise on headphones to relax, but I could still hear outside sound and the white noise just felt a little annoying to me. The other one I tried is the Deepak Chopra Dream Weaver, where you listen to a little bit of Deepak himself speaking in a calm voice to guide you to a relaxing “other” world, then you wear glasses with embedded LEDs that blink in various colors and formations to create hypnotic visual images (you keep your eyes closed and just pick up light and patterns). The blinking LEDs sort of freaked me out and made me stressed and anxious, the opposite of the intended goal. Maybe others will like it, but I would urge caution.

 

Enhanced food and drink It seemed that there was more food on offer here than I’ve seen at other Sky Clubs, not quite the full buffet you might see at a foreign carrier’s lounge, but getting close. Delta says it’s partnering with chef Ethan Stowell to provide food that has a local flair to it, in addition to a mac and cheese dish from Beecher’s Cheese, which is a Seattle institution (and we can attest to it being delicious). As far as beverages, it was the standard Sky Club setup of free and premium offerings, but here Delta will have Washington State wines, as well as spirits and beers from local makers. THE BAR at Delta Sky Club offers a variety of premium and complimentary options including Washington wines such as Chateau Ste. Michelle, cocktails from local distilleries including Glass Vodka, Westland Distilleries and more, Georgetown Lucille IPA craft beer, and freshly brewed Starbucks coffee.

All in all, this Sky Club is a fantastic new space that will be welcomed by frequent travelers. It also ups the game considerably in terms of lounge experiences offered by U.S. carriers — so American, United, and Alaska should pay attention, but even foreign carriers are put on notice. It definitely shows how much effort Delta is putting into growing its Seattle hub.

For west coast flyers, Seattle is an increasingly viable option for international journeys. Delta flies nonstop to five cities in Asia from SEA (Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo/NRT, Seoul, and Hong Kong) and three cities in Europe (London/LHR, Amsterdam, and Paris), with most of those airports offering tons of connections on Delta partners to get you almost anywhere you want to go. And Seattle is a somewhat efficient routing, as most west coast flights go up the coast over the Seattle area anyway to get to Asia or Europe.

Sky Club members and certain American Express cardholders have unlimited access the club. Non-members can pay a one-time fee of $59.

What’s Next for Sky Clubs? A renovated Club in Raleigh-Durham is scheduled to open in late November and will offer additional seats, more accessible power and a new food and beverage area. A new Club expansion is coming to Newark in late 2016, including a redesigned bar and more food options.

This post was written by TravelSkills contributor Scott Hintz

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