Malaga Airport is the fourth busiest airport in Spain and an important gateway for tourism, serving the whole Costa del Sol. It’s a busy but spacious and well organised airport. Here we review the Sala VIP lounge at Malaga Airport. Access to the lounge is by premium travel, airline status or payment (a steep €33.90 per person!).
We were travelling from Malaga to London Gatwick in economy class, but as we had British Airways Executive Gold Club status, we enjoyed all the pre take-off benefits which made our journey a lot more comfortable. We got to use the Sala VIP lounge at Malaga Airport as part of our benefits. This extended to the use of the fast track lanes and being in boarding group 1. For information about boarding groups click here.
WiFi access
WiFi access was given by registering with your email address at no additional cost, and once you’re on the network it was stable and pretty good.
Sala VIP lounge Malaga Airport
The Sala VIP lounge at Malaga Airport is used by all the airlines flying out of the airport, including British Airways. Priority Pass card holders and those willing to pay can also access the lounge too.
The view of the lounge The food and drinks area
As lounges go, it’s sufficient – nothing fancy – but it had all the things you’d expect. So a great pit stop for a pre-flight beverage. The lounge is spacious and had multiple areas including two meeting rooms (for all the important business talk while you’re coming back from holiday ?), a rest area with comfy sofa beds (for all the tired people who partied too hard), work areas (for bloggers like us ??) and lots of seating. There are two toilets at opposite ends of the lounge but we didn’t spot a shower. It’s a massive lounge, so it didn’t feel crowded, but being the only lounge in the airport and depending on the time of day, we suspect it got very busy. So it’s always good to check if you’re paying for access to the lounge if it’s worth it.
Food, snacks, a selection of alcohol and non-alcohol drinks, were available. Everything is self serviced, and there is free flow of cava available. It was obviously very popular as we heard corks popping frequently.
They also had all the ingredients for a mean Bloody Mary (perhaps an ode to all the hungover holiday makers returning from the Costa del Sol to work). We sampled a few glasses of cava, Bloody Mary (challenge passed!), and then the lovely Temperanilo red wine on offer. If you were that way inclined, you could easily get drunk on what’s on offer.
Don’t expect gourmet food at the lounge, it was mainly small plates, salads and other snacks. It’s not somewhere we would go for our having lunch or dinner but the snacks kept us sufficiently satisfied.
BG1 Verdict
It was a good lounge to spend a couple of hours before our flight back home to London. It had everything you needed, with good variety of snacks and alcohol.
Would we pay to access the the Sala VIP lounge at Malaga Airport? Perhaps…The 2.5 star rating on Trip Advisor might be a bit harsh. but, ultimately it doesn’t provide the best value for money, so unless you’re going to eat and drink €33.90 worth per person, we would recommend saving your money towards a nice bottle of wine in one of the restaurants instead!
