Going Inside Virgin Australia’s New Melbourne Lounge

We haven’t covered much on Virgin Australia recently. Our bad. However, we couldn’t help but fall in love with their new Melbourne Lounge that has been open a little over a week. Taking 6 months to renovate the previous lounge space, they have managed to double the size and give the whole venue a slick, well designed and well appointed lounge.

Well appointed? Yes. Check out their stunning new wine bar or espresso bar, perfect for anyone wanting to relax and get in the mood for their flight. More interestingly the lounge, which is beautiful, is more about the passenger experience than design itself and that’s hard to fault. The airline has launched its first Premium Valet service at Melbourne domestic airport, allowing guests to drop off their car seamlessly before their flight. Once checked in and in the lounge, the passengers (from June onwards) will be able to experience Virgin Australia’s ‘Premium Exit’ in July this year. Located within the lounge, the dedicated security screening point will allow guests to move seamlessly to their departure gate.

Virgin Australia Chief Customer Officer, Mark Hassell said: “As one of Australia’s key corporate hubs and a popular leisure destination, Melbourne is a very important focus for us. We know that time is of the essence for many travellers and we look forward to introducing this innovative service, allowing them to save time and enjoy more of the lounge prior to their flight.”

As for the design, we love what the airline has done, mixing the ‘Virgin spirit’ with the leaf motif that runs through Virgin Australia’s branding. The large wooden leaf ceiling is beautiful and light, the motif forming shapes to create the stunning wooden Wine bar and shapes the long lounge benches in the seating areas. The natural wooden finishes match that of Qantas’ First Class Lounge in Sydney, designed by Marc Newson, but the rival’s design here in Melbourne has managed to give the lounge a feeling of fun and retro-chic, something that is familiar to those who know the Virgin brand.

We can’t wait to come experience the lounge itself, but in the meantime, we’ll just have to enjoy some of the key facts of this huge 1209m2 lounge. It seats 604 guests and features:

All day-dining and barista service;
Two meeting rooms;
A Wine Bar, offering a premium selection of wine and beer;
An Espresso Bar;
Business services including complimentary Wi-Fi, power, PCs and printers;
Entertainment options including newspapers, premium magazine titles; and 10 high-definition TVs featuring FOXTEL and free-to-air programming.