proprietors

Not Business Class, but Still Traveling Like a Boss

August 26, 2013 by NewsMaker

ATLANTA — There is a new club in this city often referred to as the ATL. Somehow, despite the abundance of clubs, the name its proprietors chose was unclaimed: the Club at ATL.

Yet it is hardly the latest hangout at Midtown or Buckhead or other night-life magnets. It usually borders on library-quiet and closes at 9:30 p.m. The $35 cover charge may seem steep, but food and drink are included. The drinks are dished out at a long, curved bar by an actual barkeeper.

Patrons pass through tighter security than at any club they have probably ever frequented.

The club, which opened six weeks ago, sits just beyond the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at an international concourse at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. It is a passenger lounge little different from the major airlines lounges that are geared toward their faithful fliers.

What distinguishes the Club at ATL and a handful of others in the United States is that they operate independently from an airline. The clientele they woo is anyone willing to pay for a day pass.

“It’s a democratization of the lounge,” said Chris McGinnis, editor of The Ticket, a blog that caters to frequent travelers. “It opens up the lounge to someone of lesser means.”

The two concepts, however, are not distinct. The Club at ATL maintains an arrangement with two foreign-based airlines to admit their passengers who hold business- or first-class tickets.

Also, some airline clubs offer day passes to nonmembers of their frequent flier programs or even to those without a ticket on one of their planes. Delta, whose newest of several lounges at Hartsfield-Jackson sits next door to the Club at ATL, charges $50 to all comers.

Still, most customers at the airline-run clubs pay an annual fee. “For folks who don’t travel that frequently, it’s a big investment to make,” Mr. McGinnis said. He views the unaffiliated sites as “a great idea for someone who doesn’t want to make the investment in membership for lounge access.”

Atlanta’s autonomous club is administered by Airport Lounge Development of Plano, Tex., a company created in 2006 strictly to run a club at Dallas-Fort Worth International. Four years later, partly inspired by similar lounges in Europe and Asia, where they are far more common, the company looked to grow beyond Texas. It now has clubs at airports in Las Vegas, San Jose, Calif., and Raleigh, N.C.

Graham Richards, Airport Lounge Development’s director of operations, said the market for independent clubs was ripe. Major airline mergers have curbed the growth of traditional lounges, and airports are seeking new ways to generate revenue. Airports build the clubs and collect rent from the lounge company along with a portion of fees.

Further, Mr. Richards said, airlines “increasingly are asking, Do we really need to be investing all this capital in a lounge?”

Mr. Richards indicated that Airport Lounge Development intends to announce more locations soon. Potential sites are limited by the need for significant passenger traffic and available room. The fit is easier at airports undergoing renovation or expansion.

The average daily customer count at Hartsfield-Jackson lounges is 150 to 160, many of whom enter free of charge by flashing their higher-price tickets on British Airways or Lufthansa or their membership cards to Priority Pass, a global lounge access program, or the Diners Club. A.L.D. also provides long-term enrollment.

A makeshift wall divides seats, 172 in all, between the main area and a “quiet zone,” where soft lavender lighting sets the mood.

Visitors can sink into round gray chairs and find an electrical outlet within arm’s length almost anywhere.

A continental breakfast, ready when doors open at 5:30 a.m., gives way to a lunch and dinner of soup, sandwiches, salads and snacks. A bartender begins pouring and stirring in midmorning and declares last call just before 9:30 p.m.

Other amenities include Wi-Fi, a business center, showers (with a generous 30-minute time limit) and a wide-angle view of departing and arriving planes and Atlanta’s skyline.

The Club at ATL stacks up competitively with its neighboring lounge, though only Delta can promote an outdoor terrace.

Mr. Richards acknowledges that some fliers will consider the fee steep, but he points out that a restaurant or bar tab and the cost of Internet access might not amount to substantially less.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/business/not-business-class-but-still-traveling-like-a-boss.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

World Briefing | Europe: Britain: Newspapers Protest New Press Rules

In a statement, the newspaper society representing 1,100 newspapers said provisions for fines of up to $1.5 million on errant newspapers would impose a “crippling burden” on cash-strapped publications struggling against the inroads of the Internet.

“A free press cannot be free if it is dependent on and accountable to a regulatory body recognized by the state,” the president of the society, Adrian Jeakings, said.

Indeed, the conservative Daily Mail commented in an editorial, “The bitter irony is this long-drawn out debate comes when the Internet — which, being global, has no regulatory restraints — is driving newspapers out of business.”

“If politicians had devoted half as much of their energies to keeping a dying industry alive, instead of hammering another nail into its coffin, democracy would be in a healthier state today.”

Newspaper proprietors and editors have not so far signed on to the agreement announced on Monday and say they were excluded from late-night cross-party talks on the new code while privacy campaigners clamoring for tighter press controls took part in the deliberations. Some indicated on Tuesday that they would not be rushed into responding to the proposed restrictions.

“We need to go back a long way — to 1695, and the abolition of the newspaper licensing laws — to find a time when the press has been subject to statutory regulation. Last night, Parliament decided that 318 years was long enough to let newspapers and magazines remain beyond its influence, and agreed a set of measures that will involve the state, albeit tangentially, in their governance,” the conservative Daily Telegraph said.

Lawmakers on Monday “urged the newspaper industry to endorse the new dispensation as quickly as possible,” the newspaper said. “However, after 318 years of a free press, its detail deserves careful consideration.”

The agreement announced Monday creates a system under which erring newspapers will face big fines and come up against a tougher press regulator with new powers to investigate abuses and order prominent corrections in publications that breach standards.

The deal, struck in the early hours of Monday, enshrines the powers of the regulator in a royal charter — the same document that sets out the rules and responsibilities of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Bank of England.

That ended a fierce dispute, which divided the coalition government, over whether new powers should instead be written into law.

The idea of legislation raised alarms among those cherishing three centuries of broad peacetime freedom for Britain’s newspapers. They included Prime Minister David Cameron, who said a law establishing a press watchdog would cross a Rubicon — Caesar’s point of no return — toward government control because it could be amended to be even stricter by future governments that might want to curb the press.

But victims of hacking, the Labour opposition and the Liberal Democrats — the junior partners in the coalition — pointed to the failures of existing self-regulation and pressed for a “statutory underpinning” to enshrine the changes in law. That was in line with a central recommendation of a voluminous report published last November after months of exhaustive testimony into the behavior and culture of the British press at an inquiry by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson. His inquiry was called after the hacking scandal crested in July 2011.

There will be minor legislation to accompany the new system. One law will be amended to ensure that changes to the charter — and therefore to the system of press regulation — can be made only if there is agreement by two-thirds of both houses of Parliament. Another change will make news groups that opt out of the new regulatory system subject to higher fines for defamation. Britain’s existing legislation already includes some of the world’s most stringent defamation laws, along with rules governing what may be published on matters relating to national security and judicial procedures.

Stephen Castle reported from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/europe/britain-newspapers-protest-new-press-rules.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Not Business Class, but Still Traveling Like a Boss

World Briefing | Europe: Britain: Newspapers Protest New Press Rules

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