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Suppose I am a Star Alliance Gold member via say Turkish Airlines frequent flier program however my usual flight pattern leads me to use another star alliance airline, say Air India. Ergo I use Air India's lounges all the time.

Who foots the bill, TK or AI? Is there an interline agreement for compensation?

Just curious how lounge usage works.

What if there is assymetric use i.e. lots of TK gold members use AI flights and lounges but few in the reverse direction?

Does star alliance make airlines compensate each other for lounge use?

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    Frequent flyer programmes are in general so ridiculously profitable (for the airlines) that I suspect that the costs of operating a lounge are pretty much negligible in the grand scheme of things.
    – TooTea
    Commented Sep 14 at 9:04
  • The airlines make much more profits from code shares and connecting tickets than the peanuts that the lounges cost them. I doubt they even bother accounting for that.
    – littleadv
    Commented Sep 14 at 9:06
  • If the passenger uses AI flights then it’s AI making money and indirectly granting the privilege to the passenger, even though enrolled in the TK programme… but more generally, in your opinion, who should pay? The airline(s) the passenger is flying on today? The airline operating the programme the passenger is enrolled in? The airline(s) on which the passenger flew until now and got him status? That quickly becomes quite complex. Anyway, all in all, it should more or less balance out globally…
    – jcaron
    Commented Sep 14 at 12:31
  • @jcaron Thanks. I've no opinion on who should pay just checking the ground reality of who pays! :)
    – curious_cat
    Commented Sep 14 at 14:21
  • As a analogy in the day of land lines in the USA different carriers used to pay others termination charges for calls.
    – curious_cat
    Commented Sep 14 at 14:21

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As a rule of thumb, each airline pays per passenger per use. So if you wave your TK elite card to get into an AI lounge, AI sends the bill to TK; and if an AI elite card holder uses a TK lounge, TK sends the bill to AI.

For most routes most of the time, usage is roughly equal at both ends, so it's plus minus zero at the end of the day.

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  • Today, where every boarding pass get scanned, that makes sense. But I distinctly remember earlier times where they just look at your printed boarding pass and as long as there was "*G" on it, you where in. As far as I remember no one took a written record of my entry.
    – Hilmar
    Commented Sep 14 at 21:22
  • @Hilmar I presume they still added a tally mark to a written log somewhere. They didn't care who entered, just that somebody did.
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Sep 14 at 22:06
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    Not true for all cases, in many cases there are bilateral agreements where two airlines can use each other's lounges, or sometimes for a minimum guaranteed number per day, if exceeded, then the airline pays.
    – Nean Der Thal
    Commented Sep 14 at 23:25
  • You don't have to count the individuals. You only have to count the number of airplanes that arrive and depart. That gives you passenger numbers, which gives you lounge numbers. You might count occasionally for calibration or correction, but that's it.
    – david
    Commented Sep 15 at 3:02
  • @NeanDerThal wouldn't bilateral agreements become too difficult? Given that Star alliance has more than a dozen airlines that would mean a lot of agreements!
    – curious_cat
    Commented Sep 15 at 4:58

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