Like many Chinese airports, Kunming Changshui International Airport (KMG) has steadily growing international connectivity. It offers flights to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, various Southeast Asian cities, and even a 16:30 route to Dubai. For that last destination, I wound up in the Kunming airport international departures lounge.
Officially the “first & business class lounge,” it is currently the only lounge available after passport control.
The lounge can be found by gates 65-68. Look for that little green display on the left when you’re coming from the security checkpoint.
It’s not part of Priority Pass, nor LoungeKey, but I believe DragonPass holders have access. (link in Chinese) There’s also not so much information about the place; the DragonPass link mentions closure once the last flight departs, but the most recent comment says otherwise. Regardless, don’t expect much.
Firstly, given that I was in the Kunming Airport international departures lounge around “lunch time,” I somewhat expected to see a couple of hot meal options. The few other Chinese lounges I’ve been to had chafing dishes with vegetable/noodle choices, but not this one. Instead, the chafing dishes were collecting dust in the corner, only to be substituted for cup noodles.
Fortunately, I somewhat planned for this. Given that my experience with mainland Chinese airline food is no bueno, I brought a pack of granola. The lounge provided the paper bag of milk, two cups of Yunnan tea, and utensils:
While chomping away, I noticed some bizarre pictures of horses, failing to imitate Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man sketching. It was as random as those A.A. Milne drawings in the Zhengzhou lounge.
Moving onto the seating arrangements, there was of mix of sofas, chairs, and a few massage chairs.
China is in love with massage chairs. In fact, Xuchangbei high-speed rail station in Henan was littered with them:
Personally, I find them inconvenient for say, eating, using the computer, or just about anything related to high productivity. But massage chairs were the only ones available, so I moved a table towards one to eat/type away.
Whatever. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s the Kunming Airport international departures lounge, so it was either stay there, or come to grips with a truly mainland scenario.
I call this part, the bonus track.
Like many airports, not just in China but throughout the world, accommodations are made for smokers. In some cases, they’re outdoor spaces. However, more often than not, it’s an enclosed room.
Not in Kunming airport’s case.
If you can’t tell what’s happening in the above photo, put it this way: that entire section of the concourse reeked of Double Happiness.
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