Will airport business lounge arrive in Albany?
Cornell MBA students want to provide an area to work or relax at smaller airports
Cornell MBA students want to provide an area to work or relax at smaller airports.
Ask any business traveler — sometimes the best part of their trip is the airport lounge between (or before) their flights.
Typically, there’s quiet space to work, along with snacks and perhaps a dry martini, as well as TVS carrying news and sports.
But most lounges, from the United Club and Polaris Lounge to the Admirals Club and Sky Club Lounge, are found only in major city airports, most often at the carriers’ hubs.
Until now, smaller airports were often shut out.
But some Cornell University MBA students see opportunity in airports like Syracuse, Albany and Rochester.
Earlier this week, they opened what they hope will be the first of their Matte Black Lounges, in a vacant space at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. The lounge will charge travelers $25 each for entry, and in return they have a relatively quiet place to relax or work, with good wifi connections and desk space, as well as food and a bar dispensing adult beverages.
Entry is free to members of Priority Pass, a worldwide lounge network that’s not affiliated with any specific airline.
The students retrofitted a vacant room in Concourse A at Hancock.
“This is temporary as we try to gauge demand in the airport and gather data prior to a full lounge build out,” said one of the students, Gabe Wenutu Trumbo. “And yes, we are free to anyone who has a Priority Pass, which is commonly included as a credit card benefit or can be purchased directly for a flat yearly fee.
“The lounge provides a large selection of healthy snacks as well as an open bar,” Trumbo added in an email.
Trumbo and business partner David Nguyen, both MBA students at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, put together the Matte Black proposal, which won first place at last year’s Cornell Hospitality Business Plan. Now they’ve partnered with companies including regional design and staging company Redesigned Inc. as well as Ithaca Hummus and Grabanzos.
“We are specifically targeting small to
mid-sized airports, which are currently overlooked by lounge developers because of their lack of layovers,” Trumbo said. “However, as layover times continue to get pushed down by the carriers, the trend in lounge use is moving to pre-origin flight.
“In-state we would be targeting airports like ALB and ROC as future expansion points,” Trumbo added.
A spokesman for the Albany County Airport Authority said a lounge just might be in the airport’s future.
“As the airport authority moves forward with its plan for terminal improvements and expansion, the concept of a passenger lounge will be among our considerations,” airport spokesman Doug Myers said.